PARIS, December 7. /TASS/. France’s President Francois Hollande says about certain progress in talks on Ukraine. On Sunday he had negotiations with Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, where he said about results of his meeting with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
“Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel stated certain progress,” the Elysee Palace said in a communiquй. Paris and Berlin are considering now how to “consolidate what has been achieved already.”
After the talks in Moscow, Hollande had a telephone conversation with Ukraine’s President Pyotr Poroshenko, the Elysee Palace said.
On Saturday, Francois Hollande said the meeting with Vladimir Putin “will bring results in the coming days.”
“The meeting was held at a lucky moment and under lucky circumstances and will definitely bring results in the coming days,” Hollande told reporters aboard his plane en route to Paris.
“If on December 9 there is a confirmation that the ceasefire holds, we can view a possibility of going ahead with negotiations,” Hollande said. “However, if the conflict brings about victims in the coming two or three weeks, we’ll make certain conclusions.”
“If we cannot go ahead, we’ll come back to the Cold War times that were based on mutual threatening and extreme tendencies,” he said. “It can trigger dissociation with Russia.”
“I think a political dialogue is the most complicated item and it will take time to enhance it,” he said adding that the meeting “allowed confirming the Minsk agreements goals.”
Hollande said that he will inform Germanys’ Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukraine’s President Pyotr Poroshenko about the contents of his conversation with Putin in the coming hours.
France, “taking into consideration its position on Mistrals /helicopter carries/, now has an opportunity to come forward with initiatives over Ukraine’s conflict.”
“At the talks we did not tackle this issue as it had no sense and each of us knew the answers,” he said. “So there is nothing surprising that after the talks Vladimir Putin mentioned compensations” in case the deliveries are cancelled.
Although Mistral deliveries to Russia are intertwined with Ukraine’s crisis and Hollande personally made a decision to suspend them, Putin did not raise the issue at the meeting at Vnukovo.
“We have not spoken about Mistrals, moreover, nor even mentioned them,” Putin said adding that “there is a contract, it is a legal document. We proceed from the fact that it will be fulfilled.”
“I didn’t ask questions and the /French/ president didn’t say a word about it,” Putin said.
“If not, [meaning - if France does not fulfil the contract] we won’t have any special claims but of course we hope that we will get back the money already paid /to France/,” he said.
“But we view any development of the situation with understanding and will view it with understanding,” Putin said.
Hollande made a stopover in Moscow en route from Kazakhstan’s capital Astana to Paris.
The two-hour meeting was not scheduled and took place at Vnukovo airport. After the talks, the two men spoke to journalists but separately.