LVIV: Ukraine proposes adopting neutral status with a security guarantee benefit in talks with Russia in Turkey, which means it will not join the host alliance or host military bases, said Ukrainian negotiator on Tuesday.
The proposal will also include a 15-year consultation period on the status of Crimean’s mind and can take effect only in terms of complete ceasefire, the negotiators told reporters in Istanbul.
The proposal is the most detailed and concrete that Ukraine has aired. They also imagined security guarantees along the line of NATO military alliances article 5, the collective defense clause. Poland, Israel, Turkey and Canada can be among potential security guarantors.
“If we succeed in consolidating this main provisions, and for us this is the most fundamental, then Ukraine will be in a position to truly improve its current status as a non-block and non-nuclear state in the form of permanent neutrality,” said Oleksplay negotiator chaly.
“We will not host foreign military bases in our region, as well as spreading military contingents in our region, and we will not enter into military-political alliances,” he said, in comments broadcast on Ukrainian national television.
“Military exercises in our region will take place with approval from the guarantor state.”
There is enough material in the current Ukrainian proposal to guarantee a meeting between the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Ukrainian negotiator, adding them to waiting for Russian response.
Ukrainian and Russian negotiators met in Turkey on Tuesday for first face-to-face talks in almost three weeks, with Ukraine looking for a ceasefire without sacrificing the area or sovereignty when his troops had pushed Russia back from Kyiv.