The Ukraine-EU summit, which is scheduled for December 19 in Kyiv, will be held in any case, the head of the Ukrainian delegation at the talks with the EU on the association agreement, Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, has said.
"There was a formal exchange of respective documents regarding the fact that the summit will be held on December 19. And climate change is an issue that is addressed as part of the Kyoto process, rather than as part of relations between Ukraine and the EU," the diplomat said in an interview with the Mirror Weekly. Ukraine publication (ZN.UA).
When asked whether the association agreement will be initialed at the summit, Klimkin said: "We're working on this. However, this is rather a technical issue, unlike the signing and ratification. The initialing is a technical agreement by the parties on the text of the document. It means that the parties have reached agreement at some point, they have completed the talks on the text."
Ukraine's representative to the EU, Kostiantyn Yeliseyev, said on November 25 that the chances of initialing the EU-Ukraine association agreement still existed.
"The situation around the initialing of the association agreement is very difficult but not hopeless. The chances, although they are slight, but, in my opinion, still exist. In the next few days, they will be decisive in this regard," the diplomat said in an interview with Channel 5 late on Friday.
