MOSCOW. May 11 (Interfax) - Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko believes it would be expedient to have a meeting of the Normandy Four (Germany, France, Ukraine, and Russia) early next month.
"I believe it can and should be held in early June. We will find out whether my hopes can come true on May 23 and 24, after the attempts at preliminary coordination," Poroshenko said at a joint press conference with Slovenian President Borut Pahor in Kyiv on Friday.
He added that the meeting should not be an end in itself, but must yield a decision. "First and foremost, this decision should ensure the security dimension of the Minsk Agreements and include a resolution of the UN Security Council on peacekeeping forces in the occupied Donbas," Poroshenko said.
This is the most effective and probably the only way to start the political process and prepare for local elections in Donbas under the supervision of international peacekeeping forces, he said.
"Otherwise, Ukrainian representatives will be unable to campaign, there will be no access to mass media, the freedom of meetings will not be ensured, and it will be impossible to monitor [the guarantee of] citizens' free expression of their will," Poroshenko said.
Ukraine's European partners support this position, he said.