U.S. exploring opportunities to support Normandy format talks in Ukraine
The United States is exploring opportunities for supporting the negotiating process on Ukraine in the Normandy format (France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine), a U.S. Department of State spokesperson said at a news briefing.
"There is broad-based support across the four of them for U.S. involvement, and we are currently considering how best to support the Normandy format and the Minsk negotiations," the spokesperson said at a news briefing in the context of U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's plans to visit Ukraine and Turkey.
All countries involved in the Normandy format negotiations have expressed the desire to have a U.S. counterpart, he said.
"On the Ukraine question, I would say that all of the members of the Normandy format - France, Germany, Ukraine, and Russia - have expressed their desire to have a U.S. counterpart that they can work with in the negotiations, not as a member of the Normandy format but as an important support to that format and collaborator with those countries as they negotiate implementation of the Minsk agreements," he said.
It was reported earlier that Rex Tillerson would visit Ukraine on July 9.
