Normandy Format Talks To Resume After Presidential Election In Ukraine - Poroshenko

KIEV (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd March, 2019) The talks on the Donbas crisis settlement in the so-called Normandy Four format, which comprises France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine, will resume after the presidential election in Ukraine, President Petro Poroshenko said on Friday.

The presidential election in Ukraine is scheduled for March 31. The Ukrainian Election Commission has registered 39 candidates for this year's race. Comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy remains the front-runner in the race, according to fresh polls. He is followed by former Ukrainian Prime Minister and leader of the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party Yulia Tymoshenko and Poroshenko.

"Immediately after the presidential election, we will raise in the United Nations through political and diplomatic means the issue of a peacekeeping contingent.

We will immediately resume negotiations in the Normandy format and implement a security component, and then we will have a political part, in accordance to which those who live in Donbas will be able to choose local authorities," Poroshenko told Ukraina tv channel.

The armed conflict in the east of Ukraine began in 2014, after the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics refused to recognize the new government, saying that it had come to power through a coup.

In 2015, the warring parties signed a ceasefire deal in Minsk, following talks, brokered by the leaders of the Normandy group. Despite this agreement, sporadic fighting has continued in Donbas. To date, the situation remains tense, with both sides accusing each other of violating the ceasefire.