Moscow hopes for result at next round of talks with Ukraine - Slutsky

MOSCOW. March 7 (Interfax) - Moscow hopes the next round of talks with Ukraine will yield a concrete result, a member of the Russian delegation and deputy head of the Duma foreign affairs committee, Leonid Slutsky, said.

"Difficult partners, as we imagined. And we wish concrete agreements were today reached on the issues that were discussed so we took back to Moscow concrete results on the most important areas of our consultations. But we see this is proving to be difficult," Slutsky told journalists after the third round of talks on Monday.

"The talks will resume quickly," he said.

"Let us not indulge in the illusion that the finishing result will be achieved at the next step or the one after that. This will be quite hard, consistent work. Let us not hope that our counterparts will immediately take a position close to ours and stick to it unfailingly," he said.

In particular, Slutsky is hoping for the successful talks over civilian evacuation via humanitarian corridors.

"Today we discussed this topic in much detail. I would like to express a hope that the next attempts to withdraw people - today we discussed specific areas with geographical names and detailed approaches - we hope that the next attempts to withdraw people are forthcoming and will be successful," Slutsky said.