Statement by Secretary Kerry on Minsk from an April 24 Press Availability

Well, with respect to – with respect to Foreign Minister Lavrov and Ukraine, we did discuss Ukraine.  We spent some amount of time on it.  There are conversations taking place now about how to proceed to implement Minsk more fully.  There are differences of opinion which rose at the last Normandy meeting that took place about a week ago which are being worked through.  And it’s our hope – what he did express was a hope that the political portion of the Minsk-Ukraine relationship is going to go forward.

And I challenged him, obviously, very directly with respect to convoys, the OSCE inspections, the presence of both military personnel and military equipment that has not yet been moved, and some of the areas where there are still hotspots.  I think that hopefully through other channels in the next days a lot of those issues will continue to be focused on, as we have been.  And my hope is that some progress can be made in getting the full implementation of Minsk.  But it is clear at this point in time that it has not yet been lived up to sufficiently, and at this point in time the desire that Russia has expressed to begin to move Europe away from some of the sanctions I think remains elusive because Minsk itself has not been adequately implemented.  So we have to continue to keep the pressure on.