All news

Normandy Four foreign ministers to meet September 12 in Berlin

KIEV, September 10. /TASS/. The presidents of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France have agreed, during phone talks, on the date of a foreign ministerial meeting in the Normandy format, the Ukrainian presidential press service reported.

"The interlocutors agreed on a further schedule of contacts in the Normandy format: a meeting of foreign ministers on September 12 in Berlin and a top level meeting in early October in Paris," the statement said.

Besides, the leaders "noted considerable progress on the path toward cessation of fire and noted the necessity to sign as soon as possible the document on withdrawal from the disengagement line of tanks and guns with the calibers of up to 100 millimeters and mortars up to 120 millimeters with due monitoring and verification of the pullback regime on the part of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission [SMM] inspectors, in particular, by establishing permanent points along the disengagement line.

Massive shelling of residential neighborhoods, including with the use of aviation, has killed thousands and led to a humanitarian disaster in Donbass.

Kiev has regularly violated the ceasefire regime imposed as part of the Package of Measures on implementation of the September 2014 Minsk Agreements.

The Package [Minsk-2] was signed on February 12, 2015 in the Belarusian capital Minsk by participants of the Contact Group on settlement in Donbass.

The Package, earlier agreed with the leaders of the Normandy Four [Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine] envisioned an overwhelming cessation of fire and withdrawal of heavy armaments to create a security area in the region at least 50 kilometers wide.

At a meeting of the Contact Group on settlement in Donbass in Minsk on August 26, its participants confirmed their plans to ensure ceasefire in Donbass by September 1. OSCE Special Representative in Ukraine Martin Sajdik said that it is necessary to achieve stable ceasefire by the start of the new academic year.

The latest truce has been generally observed.