MOSCOW. Aug 19 (Interfax) - Moscow-Kiev talks is not currently an option given the situation, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"The [Russian] president has very articulate about this, that after the attacks began on our Kursk region, not an attack even, but an invasion of the Kursk region, negotiations are now out of the question," Lavrov told Pavel Zarubin, the host of the "Moscow. Kremlin. Putin" program on the Rossiya-1 (VGTRK) television channel.
"And another very important phrase our president said, to which I would like to draw attention, is that we certainly will give an assessment of this situation a bit later," he said.
He also dismissed as rumors the reports about secret preparations for Qatar-brokered Russia-Ukraine talks over energy infrastructure and Turkey-mediated ones on food security.
"All this is being done in furtherance to the Burgenstock conference which decided to form three working groups: on energy, on food in relation to the maritime safety, and on humanitarian issues, prisoner exchange, and so on. These three have been created and their meetings are being prepared. And whoever talks of some allusions about somehow drawing Russia in there, all that is disingenuous. So, once again I will say: at issue is what to us is an unacceptable Burgenstock process, whose sole goal is to advance an ultimatum under the title of the 'Zelensky formula'," Lavrov said.