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EU-Russia ties likely return to normal if Ukraine situation stabilized: EU diplomat

Xinhua, January 22, 2015 Adjust font size:

The European Union (EU) could restore its normal relations with Russia, provided the situation in Ukraine is stabilized and peace agreements are fully implemented, EU envoy to Russia Vygaudas Usackas said Thursday.

"Implementation of the entire content of the Minsk agreements should lay the desirable groundwork that could help us address the issue of withdrawing the restrictive measures on Russia in the future," Usackas told a news conference in Moscow.

He said stabilization of the situation in Ukraine would enable EU-Russia relations to return onto a normal track.

Representatives from Kiev and independence-seeking insurgents in eastern Ukraine reached agreements in September last year in the Belarussian capital of Minsk, pledging to terminate armed standoff and withdraw heavy armaments as well as multiple rocket launchers. But the agreements had never been fully implemented.

"It is especially important that the agreements reached will become reality as soon as possible," Usackas said, referring to Wednesday's "Normandy Format" meeting in Berlin of Russian, Ukrainian, German and French foreign ministers.

He added that these agreements would help create "desired and important dynamic" of stabilizing eastern Ukraine and promoting the ceasefire observation, as well as to push forward the normalization of EU-Russia relations and to end the sanctions regime.

Usackas also said that the issue of Ukraine's EU membership is not on the agenda.

"At the moment no negotiations on Ukraine's accession to the EU are underway," Tass news agency quoted him as saying.

Meanwhile, Usackas warned that the possibility of Russia's quitting from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) "could not be conducive to maintaining ties and dialogue."

Earlier Thursday, Sergei Naryshkin, speaker of the Russian State Duma, or the lower house of parliament, said Russia would raise the issue of its membership in PACE if the assembly would not fully reinstate the Russian delegation's credentials this year.

EU-Russia summits were suspended and participation of the Russian delegation in the Council of Europe was reduced after Russia incorporated Crimea in March 2014, though working contacts between Russia and the EU have been continued. Endi