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France officially confirms date for Normandy Quartet summit in Paris

The summit will take place on the background of "considerable progress at the talks" reached this summer, the administration of French President Emmanuel Macron said

PARIS, November 15. /TASS/. The administration of French President Emmanuel Macron has officially confirmed that a Normandy Quartet (Russia, France, Germany, Ukraine) summit will be held in Paris on November 9.

"A summit in the Normandy format will be held on Monday, December 9, 2019. It will bring together in Paris the heads of state and government of France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine," a presidential administration spokesman told TASS on Friday.

"Plans for such a summit were discussed by the French and Russian presidents at their meeting in Fort de Bregancon on August 19," he said, adding that the topic had been also addressed at a Group of Seven meeting in Biarritz.

The summit will take place on the background of "considerable progress at the talks" reached this summer that has made it possible to "ensure disengagement of forces in a number of zones of conflict along the contact line," he said. "The summit will open a new stage in the implementation of the Minsk agreements."

Talks in the so-called Normandy format over Ukraine began to be held in June 2014. During special ceremonies on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the allied landings in Normandy during World War II, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany for the first time discussed ways of settling the conflict in Donbass. A number of telephone conversations and summit meetings, as well as contacts between foreign ministers have been held since. The latest summit in the Normandy format was held in Berlin in October 2016.

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