MOSCOW, July 18. /TASS/. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier pointed out in their telephone conversation on Saturday that Ukrainian servicemen should be withdrawn from the village of Shyrokino in the near future, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
"Following the telephone conversation Russia’s President Vladimir Putin had on Friday with Germany’s Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel, France’s President Francois Hollande and Ukraine’s President Pyotr Poroshenko, Sergey Lavrov held a talk with Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on July 18," the ministry said.
"During the conversation, [the ministers] noted that Ukrainian armed formations should be pulled out from the village of Shyrokino as soon as possible since the militias’ units have already withdrawn from there," the statement says. "The ministers supported analogous steps at other sections along the line of contact and urged the JCCC [the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination] and the OSCE SMM [the Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe] to facilitate the process."
Besides, Lavrov and Steinmeier "confirmed the significance of overall implementation of the package of measures, which was approved in Minsk on February 12 and aims to resolve the Ukraine crisis, including a direct dialogue between Kiev and Donetsk and Lugansk on the constitutional reform in Ukraine and local elections in Donbass in strict compliance with the parameters inked in the Minsk agreements," the statement says.
Talks of the Normandy Four (Russia, Germany, France, Ukraine) leaders on the Ukrainian crisis along with regular talks of the Contact Group on resolving the Ukraine conflict took place in the Belarusian capital Minsk on February 12.
The talks ended by adoption of a 13-point package of measures, which contained in particular a ceasefire starting from February 15, withdrawal of heavy weapons from the line disengaging the Kiev troops and militias of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, as well as measures on long-term political settlement in Donbass.
On Friday, the Normandy Four leaders discussed by phone the situation in the southeast of Ukraine within the context of implementation of the Minsk agreements.