Date of Normandy Four format meeting in Paris still to be advised — France’s ambassador

The day of the Normandy Four meeting in Paris is not fixed yet, France’s Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert told TASS on Saturday. “As of now, the date of the Normandy Four format meeting on Ukraine due in Paris is not fixed yet,” he said. The Normandy Four format of talks on the crisis in Ukraine was established in June 2014 when the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and France met for the first time on the sidelines of celebrations of the 70th anniversary of D-Day to discuss the ways of settling the armed civil conflict in eastern Ukraine. A total of two summit meetings, five meetings of Foreign Ministers and ten telephone discussions have taken place since then. The most recent round of talks of the four countries’ leaders was held on December 30, 2015, by telephone. Upon the results of the telephone conversation, the sides reached agreement, under which the Foreign Ministers would inspect progress in the implementation of the September 2014 and February 2015 Minsk accords at a meeting at the end of January or the beginning of February. The Normandy landings (codenamed Operation Neptune) were the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 (termed D-Day) of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II.