BERLIN, October 31. /TASS/. The gas agreements reached between Moscow and Kiev should facilitate normalisation of the situation in Ukraine, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Friday.

On October 30, Russia, the European Union and Ukraine reached agreement on Russian gas supplies to Ukraine until March 2015. The agreement also guarantees gas transit to the EU countries and Kiev's partial debt repayment.

“This agreement is an important step towards deescalating the situation that remains tense,” Steinmeier said.

“The parties [in the gas dispute] should realise this success as a motive for the immediate work on solving other severe problems that prevent the political settlement of the Ukrainian conflict,” he said.

EU energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger, who is leaving the office on Friday, earlier said he hopes that the new agreement on gas will help improve relations between Russia and Ukraine.