MOSCOW - The U.S. Embassy in Moscow has denied earlier reports suggesting that Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland spoke in favor of establishing direct dialogue between Kyiv and the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics (DPR and LPR) during her recent visit to Moscow.
“It is not true that Assistant Secretary Nuland agreed to launching a direct dialogue between the Government of Ukraine and the separatists in eastern Ukraine. Rather, the United States continues to support the ongoing dialogue between all sides of the conflict that is already underway in the working groups set up under the Trilateral Contact Group of Russia, Ukraine and OSCE. We hope to see progress under these working groups soonest,” U.S. Embassy spokesperson William Stevens told Interfax.
The Russian Foreign Ministry had said in summing up outcomes of a meeting between Nuland and Russian State Secretary and Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin that the parties had discussed possible options for interaction between Russia and the U.S. in advancing a settlement of the Ukraine crisis and emphasized the importance of launching Kyiv’s direct dialogue with the DPR and LPR.
“There was a substantive discussion on a broad range of issues related to the Ukraine crisis. In this context, the importance of arranging a direct dialogue between the Kyiv authorities and Donetsk and Luhansk representatives was emphasized,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement circulated on Monday.
Nuland visited Russia on May 17-18.
