Aurescu: You cannot negotiate when you are under threat of arms

Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu said on Thursday that peace talks between the Russian Federation and Ukraine could not be carried out under the threat of arms while the war was going on, Agerpres reports.

"There must be a time when these hostilities stop, because even if there are efforts to negotiate a peace, in order to negotiate a solution to this conflict, these cannot be carried out while the war continues and, moreover, as all analysts say and the information shows, it is intensifying. You cannot negotiate when you are under threat of arms. There must be a time to stop hostilities, sit down at the negotiating table and conduct these negotiations in good faith," Aurescu told Digi24.

He added that the sanctions adopted by the European Union and other democratic states are beginning to take effect and can be seen in the daily reality of the Russian Federation.

"We cannot say now what the results of these negotiations are. We notice that there are positions that are expressed indirectly, through the international media, by the one side and by the other. At the first glance the positions seem quite distant, the only element on which there would be a kind of agreement, a kind of willingness to reach an agreement is that of a possible neutrality of Ukraine, but these are matters which need to be expressed and confirmed by the negotiating parties. They are not certain now," the minister said.