Ukrainian negotiators said they proposed a status under which their country would not join alliances or host foreign troop bases, but would have its security guaranteed in terms similar to “Article 5,” the collective defense clause of the NATO.
In this context, they identified Israel and NATO members Canada, Poland and Turkey as countries that could help provide such guarantees.
The proposals would include a 15-year consultation period on the status of crimea – annexed to Russia – and could only come into effect in the event of a full ceasefire, Ukrainian negotiators told reporters in Istanbul.
Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said that Russia had decided to reduce the fighting near kyiv and Chernigov to create the necessary conditions for dialogue.
The main Russian negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, said for his part that he will examine the Ukrainian proposals and will inform the president of them. Vladimir Putin.
The talks held in Istanbul on Tuesday were the first face-to-face meeting between the parties since March 10. Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, and has failed to capture any of its neighbor’s major cities after encountering fierce resistance.
Ukraine’s proposals were the most detailed and concrete that kyiv has made public.
“If we manage to consolidate these key provisions, and for us this is the most fundamental, then Ukraine will be in a position to fix its current status as a State without bloc and without nuclear weapons, in the form of permanent neutrality“, said the Ukrainian negotiator Oleksander Chaly.
“We will not host foreign military bases on our territory nor will we deploy military contingents on our territory, and we will not enter into political-military alliances,” he said. The military maneuvers would take place with the consent of the guarantor countries.
Ukrainian negotiators claimed that their proposals contain enough material to justify a meeting between the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and his Russian counterpart Putin.
Source: Ambito
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