Leonid Kravchuk / Photo from UNIAN

Head of the Ukrainian delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG) and first president of independent Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk says that if Minsk talks on Donbas in the TCG format come to a standstill, the Ukrainian side can initiate the signing of a new Budapest Memorandum.

"I think we will not renew, but expand. We will think about a new version of the document," he commented on Obozrevatel TV on the Budapest format and the Budapest memorandum.

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In particular, according to the first president, Germany, as one of the leading European countries, Poland and other countries should join in as signatories to the document.

The new version of the Budapest memorandum should propose not only "statements and intent," but also suggest a clear tool for implementing the principles declared in it, Kravchuk said.

"This issue is not to be removed from the agenda, and we will initiate it if everything comes to a dead end. But I do not believe that this deadlock will continue," he said.

As was reported, the Budapest Memorandum was signed on December 5, 1994. According to the document, Ukraine received guarantees of territorial integrity in exchange for renouncing its nuclear status. The memorandum was signed by the leaders of Ukraine, the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom.

On July 30, Kravchuk became head of the Ukrainian delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group for the peaceful settlement of the situation in Donbas, having replaced Leonid Kuchma.