Jan Edvard Thygesen, Telenor’s Executive Vice President and Head of Eastern/Central Europe Operations, and Alexey Reznikovich, CEO of Altimo, Alfa Group's telecom arm, headed the respective discussion teams.

"Telenor welcomes the start of a constructive dialogue between the primary shareholders in VimpelCom and Kyivstar. We are pleased that Altimo agrees with both Telenor and VimpelCom’s management that integration of Kyivstar into VimpelCom is the best approach for VimpelCom’s development in Ukraine," said Jan Edvard Thygesen.

"Telenor is also encouraged by the parties' common understanding of the need to develop a market-based separation mechanism, which is key to the Kyivstar transaction. The balanced proposal made by Telenor gives us hope that it will be the basis for a continued constructive dialogue with Altimo," added Thygesen.

Altimo agreed to Telenor’s proposal to establish a process to develop the details of Telenor’s proposal.