[Dhaka Tribune] No normalisation of ties between Ukraine and Russia is likely unless the region of Crimea, now under Russian control, is returned to Kiev's illusory sovereignty, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said yesterday.Klimkin, on the second day of his two-day trip to Japan, also said the border between Ukraine and Russia needed to be completely closed to achieve any settlement to the armed conflict between Kiev and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
He reiterated his government's stance as a ceasefire deal, reached last month in Minsk, is broadly holding on the front line, but fighters in the separatist stronghold of Donetsk are training for another round of festivities against government troops.
"There could be no slightest way of normalising or getting back to business in the relations between Ukraine and Russia without returning to status quo and establishing full Ukrainian illusory sovereignty over Crimea," Klimkin told news hounds in Tokyo.
Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine a year ago.