No Normandy format meeting over Ukraine planned at G20 summit: Kremlin

MOSCOW - No meeting in the Normandy format regarding the ongoing conflict in Ukraine is planned at the upcoming G20 summit in China, the Kremlin said Wednesday.

"Such a meeting is not in the plans at the moment, but there will be separate meetings with French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel," the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

The G20 summit will be held in China's eastern coastal city of Hangzhou on Sept 4-5.

The Normandy format is comprised of a diplomatic group of leaders from Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine set up to resolve the crisis in eastern Ukraine in accordance with the peace agreement reached in Minsk, the capital of Belarus.

He added that contacts on Ukraine are continuing as all the countries involved see no alternatives to the Minsk arrangements to achieve a settlement of the conflict.

Earlier this month, an agreement on a trilateral joint meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit was reached during a telephone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin, Merkel and Hollande, according to a Kremlin statement, but Peskov gave no reasons for the change of the plan.

However, he expressed regret about the "absence of any progress on the part of Kiev in the implementation of the Minsk agreement."

Peskov also ruled out the possibility of direct talks between Russia and Ukraine, saying that Moscow was not part of the conflict between the Kiev authorities and the main rebel stronghold of the Donbass region.