Marathon talks in diplomatic history

Ukraine peace talks between leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany started in Minsk on February 11 to negotiate an end fighting between militia of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s republics and government forces in eastern Ukraine

Talks lasted for 16 hours. Photo: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko speaking to each other during a time-break in their peace talks in Minsk, Belarus

Participants of Minsk summit agreed on ceasefire from midnight, February 15

Talks of Contact Group on Ukraine in Minsk lasted for 6 hours on September 19, 2014. As a result a memorandum was adopted to outline the parameters for the implementation of commitments on the ceasefire in Ukraine. Photo: Former president of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma talking to journalists in Minsk

5 hours talks to settle Ukrainian crisis were held between Russian president Vladimir Putin, French president Francois Hollande and German chancellor Angela Merkel in Moscow on February 7

Talks between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Geneva, Switzerland lasted for 7 hours. Iran's disputed nuclear program was the main topic of the meeting

Another round of Russia-Ukraine-EU gas talks on 30 October 2014 lasted nearly 12 hours and ended without result. Photo: Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller, Naftogaz CEO Andriy Kobolev, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, EU Commissioner for Energy Guenther Oettinger, EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and EU Commissioner for Inter-Institutional Relations and Administration Maros Sefcovic at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, October 30, 2014

Belfast Agreement which became a major political development in the Northern Ireland peace process of the 1990s was established on April 10, 1998. The historic event was a result of continuous negotiations including 5 hour multiparty talks. Photo: Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Belfast, 1998

Israeli-Palestinian talks before the signing of the Wye River Memorandum in October 1998 were held in Washington. One of the rounds lasted almost twenty-four hours. Photo: US President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright moderating talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat during an evening session at the Wye River Conference Center, October 19,1998

On October 25, 1997 President of the Democratic Republic of Congo Laurent Kabila had a meeting with US permanent representative to the UN, Bill Richardson in Kinshasa. As a result of negotiations that lasted most of the day, the president agreed to allow UN experts to verify the reports of mass killings of Rwandan refugees. Photo: US Ambassador to the UN Bill Richardson in Kinshasa, June 6, 1997

On December 31, 1991 the Republic of Korea and Democratic People's Republic of Korea agreed to declare the Korean Peninsula nuclear-free zone. One of the rounds of talks between two countries lasted seven and a half hours