Lukashenka responds to Nazarbayev, Trump

Aliaksandr Lukashenka has reacted to the statement that Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev made after his talks in Washington with US President Donald Trump. The Belarus leader sees no alternative to the Minsk venue for the settlement for the military conflict in eastern Ukraine.

"We remain concerned over the situation in the neighboring country,"  BELTA quotes President Lukashenka as saying. "Belarus continues to host regular meetings of the trilateral contact group… I believe that despite some quite unexpected statements (unexpected for the public perhaps but I saw them coming), there is no real alternative to this negotiating venue today."

Presidents Trump and Nazarbayev discussed the situation in Donbass in January. According to the Kazakh president, the US president does not want the talks on Ukraine to take place in Belarus. They arrived at the conclusion that the Minsk-1 negotiation process is in a deadlock as the sides in the conflict have failed to reach an agreement.

Minsk became the venue for the Donbass conflict settlement talks after the Normandy Four maet in Belarusian capital in February 2015. The resulting documents of the meetings between the leaders of Germany, Ukraine, Russia and France became known as the Minsk accords. The trilateral group consists of the representatives of the self-procliamed 'Donetsk People's Republic' and 'Luhansk People's Republic', the governments of Ukraine, Russia and a diploamt from the OSCE.