The Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, Dmytro Kuleba, in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine, said that a creative format, such as the Norman, is needed to start a conversation about Crimea.
"Now there are only two formats. The first format is through international organizations. It is when the UN adopts resolutions, UNESCO also adopts resolutions and carries out remote research on the situation in Crimea, the UN mission in Ukraine makes remote monitoring, the Council of Europe also takes some decisions and tries to break through to Crimea, the European Union retains sanctions. The second format is bilateral, when someone like Lavrov (Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov-IF) arrives somewhere and is told during negotiations that they will never recognize the occupation of Crimea. And we believe that we need some creative format where, just as in the Norman format, we could talk about Crimea", Kuleba said.
The Vice Prime Minister noted that Ukraine understands that the Russian Federation will oppose such initiatives, but Kuleba expressed confidence that the de-occupation of the peninsula will eventually happen, and Ukraine should be fully prepared for this.
"We work on this daily. And in this logic, this format is also part of the story. By and large, at the first stage we do not even need Russia in this format, because we need an understanding of what we and the international community are doing about this situation", added Kuleba.