Russia says it hopes the Iran ceasefire will lead to the resumption of peace talks in Ukraine
The Kremlin welcomed the two-week truce agreed between the United States and Iran and said Russia hoped the US would now have the time and opportunity to resume trilateral peace talks on Ukraine, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a statement on Wednesday.
“We received the news of the truce with satisfaction. We welcome the decision not to continue on the path of armed escalation,” Peskov said in a telephone conversation with journalists.
“We hope that in the near future (the US) will have more time and more opportunities to meet in a trilateral format,” Peskov said, referring to talks between Russia, Ukraine and the US.
Russia had previously said that peace talks on Ukraine had been suspended after the outbreak of hostilities in Iran.
Negotiations began last year in Istanbul, and trilateral talks with the US took place earlier this year in Abu Dhabi and Geneva.
But progress has been slow, largely because of a stalemate over territory. Russia is demanding that Ukraine give up the rest of the Donbas region, but Kiev refuses to cede territory that Moscow's forces have failed to capture in more than four years of war.
