HANOI, June 20. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin said he believes that Western countries could eventually reconsider their approach toward Russian peace proposals.
"I don't think that such nihilism regarding our proposals will remain forever. Surely something will change," he told reporters.
"Right now one can hear the voices of some [Western] politicians saying that maybe this (Russia's peace proposals - TASS) is an ultimatum, excessive demands, but we can’t reject this and need to think it over and set things straight," Putin said.
"Isn't what was set forth by our partners also an ultimatum? Some formulas have been invented, although there is the result of our negotiations in Minsk and Istanbul. Nobody remembers it for some reason," the president said.
He also said the Istanbul agreements were quite acceptable to Ukraine.
"If we reached an agreement then and it has a signature of the head of the negotiating group from Ukraine, it means that the agreements that were reached in Istanbul were in principle acceptable for the Ukrainian side," Putin said.
"Did anything happen on the ground, on the battlefield, that they allow themselves to put forward some additional conditions that have nothing to do with our agreements in Istanbul?" he said. "There is nothing of the sort, which could in any way change the position of the other negotiating party, in this case, Ukraine."