OREANDA-NEWS. Advisor to the first president of Kazakhstan, Adil Tursunov, said that the initiative of Nursultan Nazarbayev on the meeting of the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky, didn't set the goal to replace the "Norman format". Tursunov’s words on Tuesday are quoted by Kazinform news agency.

"Nursultan Nazarbayev supported the emerging progress of the parties involved within the" Norman format. "That is, there is no question that the meeting in this quadripartite format should be replaced face-to-face or hold the last before the first. In other words, "Norman format", the Minsk venue and direct Russian-Ukrainian negotiations are not mutually exclusive and can serve as complementary components of the overall process", Tursunov said.

He noted that Nazarbayev proposed Kazakhstan as a neutral platform for possible negotiations between the leaders of Russia and Ukraine. At the same time, the first president of Kazakhstan has repeatedly spoken out in the sense that it is absolutely not important for the Kazakh side in which capital such negotiations can take place.