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Meeting of Putin, Merkel and Hollande is under discussion — Kremlin

So far there has been no final confirmation of the meeting

Vladimir Putin, Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel Mikhail Metzel/TASS

Vladimir Putin, Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel

© Mikhail Metzel/TASS

MOSCOW, August 29. /TASS/. The meeting of the leaders of Russia, Germany and France - Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande - in China is still under discussion, the Russian President’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "So far there has been no final confirmation, talks via diplomatic channels are underway," he told reporters.

Earlier, the Kremlin press service reported that the three leaders had agreed to hold a meeting "on the sidelines" of the G20 summit. Then Peskov said that nobody’s perfect and everyone makes mistakes.

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In early August, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Ukraine had proposed holding a meeting of the Normandy Four leaders at the G20 summit in China. The minister then added that Russia would support this initiative if Germany and France, as well as China as the host country of the forum, provided a platform for the negotiations.

However, on August 10, Russia’s Security Service reported about the detention of a group of saboteurs in the Crimea, as well as on the prevention of terrorist attacks, that were prepared by Ukraine’s intelligence. In this regard, President Vladimir Putin said that he considers pointless to hold a summit in the Norman format in such conditions.

The negotiations in the Norman Quartet format on resolving the situation in the east of Ukraine (Donbass) has been held since June, 2014.

Then, during the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the landing of allied troops in Normandy, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany for the first time discussed the settlement of the conflict in the south-east of Ukraine. Since then, several summit meetings took place as well as meetings on ministerial level.

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