You're reading: Contact group to discuss ceasefire, swap of hostages at Minsk meeting on March 29

The Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) on settlement of the situation in Donbas will primarily discuss the issues of ceasefire and swap of hostages at its meeting in Minsk on March 29, Ukrainian special envoy for the TCG, former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma said.

“The first topic at all our meetings in Minsk is the question of security and the question of ceasefire. And we agree on it each time, but the outcome, as you see, is linked with big politics, rather than with what is happening in Minsk,” Kuchma told reporters in Dnipro (former Dnipropetrovsk) on March 27.

The second issue, which the TCG parties will consider on March 29, is the release of illegally held people on both sides from custody, Kuchma said.

“This is the same each time, as there seem to be certain prospects, but sometimes the opposite party calls for the Ukrainian side to fulfil what they cannot fulfil […] But one needs to move forward, and I am always adhering to a principle that it is necessary to hand them [hostages] over quicker on our party, either, though our party is holding much more detainees,” the Ukrainian envoy to the TCG said.