MOSCOW, July 21. /TASS/. Russia and Ukraine may resume talks as early as this week; the EU’s new sanctions on Russia are expected to backfire on Europe; and Russia opposes a renewed round of sanctions on Iran. These stories have topped Monday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.
Ankara is in consultations with Moscow and Kiev in order for the parties to hold the third round of talks in the near future, a high-ranking Turkish source told Izvestia. On July 19, Ukraine invited Russia to hold a meeting between the two countries’ delegations this week. The Russian leadership is working on a response and will soon announce a decision, said Grigory Karasin, head of the Federation Council (upper house of parliament) Committee on Foreign Affairs. However, experts are confident that only a meeting between the leaders of Russia, the US and China can bring peace closer.
It has been six weeks since the last round of Russia-Ukraine negotiations in Istanbul. At the meeting, Moscow and Kiev exchanged memorandums containing their visions for settling the conflict. The documents make it clear that the parties don’t see eye to eye on how to resolve the dispute.
The opposing positions of Russia and Ukraine are the key problem, Denis Denisov, an expert at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, pointed out. If the idea is to resolve talks in the form the first two rounds were held in, then a new meeting will not bring the parties closer to peace because the powers of negotiating teams are restricted, Andrey Kortunov, an expert with the Valdai International Discussion Club, explained.
