BERLIN, May 4. /TASS/. The German Cabinet welcomes the "silence regime" in Ukraine, the situation in the Donbass region has become calmer, German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer told a press briefing in Berlin on Wednesday.
"A few days later, we can say that the ceasefire has led to a significant reduction of hostilities. This is confirmed by the OSCE mission as well," he said.
According to Schaefer, "the [German] Foreign Ministry and federal government… welcome this partial improvement of the situation." "We hope that now all parties - after the Easter and the May holidays - will observe this regime in the long term," he said. "That would improve the conditions for the progress on the political process, on the implementation of the Minsk agreements."
Members of the Contact Group on the settlement in eastern Ukraine reached an agreement in late April on a full ceasefire in the Donbass region as of midnight on April 30. This is not the first agreement on the issue. There were at least seven such agreements since the fall of 2014 when the parties to the conflict sat down at the negotiating table for the first time. The parties last agreed to cease the hostilities in January.