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Hollande, Merkel, Poroshenko arrive in Belarus for talks in Normandy format

Hollande and Merkel merged their escorts into one at the airport and headed for Independence Palace where the summit meeting is to be held
French President Francois Hollande, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Germany’s Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel  ITAR-TASS/Mykhailo Markiv
French President Francois Hollande, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Germany’s Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel
© ITAR-TASS/Mykhailo Markiv

MINSK, February 11. French President Francois Hollande, Germany’s Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko have arrived in Minskfor four-party talks on Ukraine settlement.

Hollande and Merkel merged their escorts into one at the airport and headed for Independence Palace where the summit meeting is to be held.

Russian Vladimir Putin is also due to arrive in Minsk.

The Minsk summit is expected to be a culmination of multilateral efforts on the conflict settlement.

Diplomatic efforts to find a political solution to the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine have intensified over the past week. The leaders of Germany and France travelled to Kiev on Thursday and then to Moscow on the following day with a proposal to resolve the conflict that could be "acceptable to all".

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the text of a possible joint document on implementing the Minsk agreements is supposed to include proposals made by the Ukrainian president and initiatives formulated and added by Russian President Vladimir Putin.