Russian President Warns Against Rewriting Minsk Agreements

PARIS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 10th December, 2019) Russian President Vladimir Putin has stressed that Minsk agreements on Ukraine cannot be rewritten as this could create a situation where nothing could be done by either party.

"Our position is very easy to understand: we are for the Minsk agreements to be implemented ... Why open the Minsk agreements and rewrite them? All the points there are linked to one another. If we open one item, all the others will have to be rewritten and we will lose everything, creating a situation in which we won't be able to do anything at all," Putin said at a joint press conference after the Normandy Four talks in Paris.

The Russian leader added that all the issues concerning the conflict in southeastern Ukraine, including the issue of border control, are straightforwardly laid out in the Minsk agreements.

"It says in the Minsk agreements that Ukraine will start to establish control in this territory, on this section of the border, the day after the election [in southeaster Ukraine]. That's what it says. This process should be fully completed after a full implementation of all the political procedures," Putin stressed.

On February 11-12, 2015, the Normandy Four leaders held marathon 16-hour talks in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, which resulted in a package of measures adopted to alleviate the Ukraine crisis, commonly referred to as Minsk II protocol. The Minsk agreement stipulated, among other points, a ceasefire in Ukraine's troublesome southeastern regions (Donbas), a troop and hardware withdrawal, as well as local elections to be held in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics.