Donetsk Negotiator Hopes for Ukraine Contact Group Meetings Before New Year

Donetsk People's Republic's (DPR) negotiator Denis Pushilin hopes that next round of the Contact Group talks will take place before the end of the year.

DONETSK, December 21 (Sputnik) – A Donetsk People's Republic's (DPR) negotiator at the Contact Group talks on Ukraine said Sunday he hoped the next round of talks in Minsk would take place before the end of the year.

"We hope that we will meet before the new year. We, on our part, are ready [to go to Minsk] at once. We are working with the OSCE [the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe] as usual," Denis Pushilin told reporters in Donetsk.

Earlier on Sunday, Luhansk People's Republic's negotiator Vladislav Deinego said that the meeting would not take place on this day, as previously announced by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

Prior to that, the latest round of reconciliation talks in the Belarus capital was expected to be held on December 12. However, the meeting was cancelled.

Kiev and pro-independence forces agreed on a ceasefire during a September 5 Contact Group meeting in the Belarus capital, but have since accused one another of violating the truce.

On December 9, Poroshenko announced a "silence regime" in an effort to resume the ceasefire between the Kiev forces and independence supporters in Ukraine's southeastern regions.