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The minister said that now Putin is not ready to allow Ukraine regain control over the sections of its border with Russia in eastern Ukraine.
Law enforcement agencies of Ukraine can enter the territories of Donbas, which are now beyond Ukraine government control, once when illegal armed groups have left the area. After that, joint patrolling with "representatives of territorial communities" is possible, says Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Arsen Avakov.
To a clarifying question asked following the Normandy Four summit in Paris on whether he meant joint patrolling with the so-called "people's police", which now operates in the occupied territories, Avakov simply repeated: "I told you it's 'territorial communities'," Hromadske reports.
According to the minister, this will be a "very difficult" transition period, which will last six months, "but we are ready to go through this."
Read alsoZelensky comments on complexity of "border" issue in Donbas settlement talks
"However, it will be later, when parties have agreed on everything but for now we see that Putin is not ready to return the border to us," Avakov added.
The minister also admitted that Ukraine could agree to a compromise regarding border control and get it "not a month before the local elections, but, for example, just two days prior".
As UNIAN reported earlier, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, in negotiations in the Normandy format in Paris proposed that a subgroup be set up in the framework of the Trilateral Contact Group in Minsk on restoring Ukraine's control over the border with Russia in Donbas.