Troop pullback starts in Zolote in eastern Ukraine

Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Vadym Prystaiko announced the beginning of the troop pullback process in Zolote, Luhansk Region, Interfax Ukraine reported on Tuesday.

"The troop pullback in the agreed areas will take place before the Normandy Four meeting. We start the pullback in Zolote now. We start today...This is the pullback of the troops that are directly at the contact line," Prystaiko said in Mariupol on Tuesday.

According to the minister, the process will be confirmed by the observers of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission.

The minister also said that once the troop pullback is over in Zolote and there will be compliance with the ceasefire, a similar process will start in Petrivske.

On Oct. 1, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that an agreement on the troop pullback near the village of Petrivske, Donetsk Region and the city of Zolote, Luhansk Region had been reached at a Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) meeting in Minsk.

The lack of progress in the troop pullback process is one of the main obstacles in arranging a summit of the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany, known as the Normandy Four, where the next steps of the conflict resolution in the east of Ukraine should be decided.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)