The Russian Foreign Ministry said it had no optimism due to the EU decision to refuse Russia-EU-Ukraine trilateral talks on implementing the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement if Moscow cancels preferences regarding Ukrainian products.
“The expert-level Russian-EU consultations just finished – during which EU representatives said that Russia cancelling the preferential regime regarding Ukraine will mean automatically lack of further necessity of any trilateral contacts on this topic: ‘no preferential regime – no agenda for trilateral negotiations’ – does not give optimism,” the Russian Foreign Ministry posted a statement on June 27.
“We would like to emphasize that Russia prepares most seriously to the trilateral ministerial-level consultations on the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, which are expected to take place in mid July. We expect from our partners responsible and constructive approach, which would assist lifting quite real, not theoretical concerns of Russia,” the document said.
During the past several months Western and Ukrainian partners of Russia spoke about the possibility of deeper consultations with the participation of parties interested in order to life Russia’s concerns and assured that the association agreement coming into effect would not be a one-time act, the statement said.
“Now we hear from Ukraine President [Petro] Poroshenko that Kyiv ratifies the association agreement as quickly as possible,” the Foreign Ministry said.
