© REUTERS/ Clemens Bilan/POOL
Sergei Lavrov, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Laurent Fabius, and Pavlo Klimkin are expected to focus on the implementation of the Minsk peace accords, including setting up working groups within the so-called Contact Group on Ukraine.
Steinmeier said, prior to the talks, that it was "too early to celebrate victory in Ukrainian crisis settlement despite notable progress," as infrequent violations of the ceasefire regime persist in some contested areas of eastern Ukraine.
The Normandy Four has held several rounds of talks on Ukrainian reconciliation.
In February, in Minsk, the group worked out a ceasefire deal later signed by Kiev and pro-independence fighters of the Donbas region. The truce included a set of measures to stop military confrontation in Ukraine's southeast.
The ceasefire that came into force on February 15 under the Minsk Agreement, is generally holding, according to international monitors in the region.
The trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine comprises representatives from Kiev, Moscow, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). The group also works toward the reconciliation of the Ukrainian crisis, holding regular talks with representatives of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics.
This web site has several interesting documents that we ordinarily do not get to see. One is a grant application and another is a NATO COE (Center of Excellence) document. Clicking twice on the documents makes them easy to read.
A COE is a NATO organization. “Coordinated by Allied Command Transformation (ACT) in Norfolk, Virginia in the United States, COEs are considered to be international military organisations. They generally specialise in one functional area and act as subject matter experts in their field. They distribute their in-depth knowledge through training, conferences, seminars, concepts, doctrine, lessons learned and papers.”
The NATO document shows how it’s organizing “educational” and “training” meetings, seminars, mentoring, etc. so as to overcome the failures and failings of Ukrainian government.
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