No breakthrough in peace talks: Kremlin

Moscow, Mar 30 (EFE).- No progress has been made in peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, the Kremlin said Wednesday.

Heading into the latest round of negotiations that were being held in Istanbul this week, Russia had claimed it was reducing its activity around Kyiv “to build trust”, while Ukraine said it was willing to discuss becoming neutral instead of seeking to join Nato.

“We cannot ascertain any breakthroughs, anything very promising. We have quite a lot of work ahead of us,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said during his daily telephone press briefing.

“What is positive is that the Ukrainian side has at least started to specifically formulate and put on paper what it is proposing. So far we had not managed to achieve that,” Peskov said.

The Kremlin said that chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky would provide further updates on the talks in Istanbul later on Wednesday.

Medinsky said that the Ukrainian proposals include Kyiv’s renunciation of its intention to join Nato and its commitment to permanent neutrality, to be nuclear-free and not to station any weapons of mass destruction or foreign troops on its territory.

According to Medinsky, in return Ukraine is demanding international security guarantees and assumes that Russia would not oppose its accession to the European Union.

At the same time, the Kremlin said that Russia was not going to discuss the fate of Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014.

“Crimea is part of the Russian Federation. According to our Constitution, we cannot discuss with anyone the fate of a territory of the Russian Federation. That is ruled out,” Peskov said. EFE

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