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Porosheko, Kerry agree on necessity of Contact Group meeting in Minsk as soon as possible

KIEV, December 5. /TASS/. In a telephone conversation, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry agreed that a soonest meeting of the Trilateral Contract Group on Ukraine will give a fresh impetus to the implementation of the Minsk agreements, the press service of the Ukrainian president said on Friday.

“PetroPoroshenko said the Trilateral Contact Group should gather for a meeting the soonest possible to solve pressing humanitarian problems of people living in Donbass, such as deliveries of foodstuffs, medicines, supplies of heat and energy,” the press service said.

The U.S. Secretary of State expressed support to Ukraine’s position on expanding the Trilateral Contact Group to include representatives from the United States and the European Union.

Poroshenko and Kerry also discussed topical issues of the bilateral agenda and energy security.

The parties to the Ukrainian conflict agreed on a ceasefire at OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) mediated talks on September 5 in Belarusian capital Minsk two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed his plan to settle the situation in the east of Ukraine.

On September 20 in Minsk, the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine comprising representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE adopted a memorandum outlining the parameters for the implementation of commitments on the ceasefire in Ukraine laid down in the Minsk Protocol of September 5. The document contains nine points, including in particular a ban on the use of all armaments and withdrawal of weapons with the calibres of over 100 millimetres to a distance of 15 kilometres from the contact line from each side. The OSCE was tasked with controlling the implementation of memorandum provisions. The document was signed by OSCE envoy Heidi Tagliavini, Ukraine’s former president Leonid Kuchma, Russia’s Ambassador to Kiev Mikhail Zurabov, DPR Prime Minister Aleksandr Zakharchenko and the head of Luhansk People’s Republic, Igor Plotnitsky.

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Ukraine crisis Sanctions vs. Russia John Kerry Pyotr Poroshenko

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