BERLIN, July 11 /TASS/. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she is committed to reaching a deal that would eventually lift the European Union's sanctions on Russia, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
"All of us want good relations with Russia. Many people want to see economic sanctions on the Kremlin lifted and I would like to see it as well," Merkel told a Christian Democratic Union event at the Baltic seaside resort of Zingsttold.
Touching upon the Ukraine crisis, she said, "I can assure you that we are working very intensely on trying to make progress," Merkel told the campaign crowd of about 2,000. "But we also want Ukrainians to have access to their border again. That’s why I would like all parties involved to make compromises."
Earlier, after talks with French President Francois Hollande, Merkel said it was necessary to extend sanctions against Russia having motivated her stance by the need to implement the Minsk Accords. After that, the EU Council officially extended economic sectoral sanctions on Russia for six months.
Merkel’s remarks at today’s event on the need to hand over control over Russia’s common border with Ukraine to Ukraine are only a reference to the package of measures agreed in Minsk and the Ukrainian side’s claims on the priority importance of that issue.
However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has stressed more than once that the question of control over the Russian-Ukrainian border will remain unresolved so long as certain clauses of the Minsk Accords, which forestall the transition of border control, remain unfulfilled.
"The Ukrainians want that constantly. But we have explained to them many times that without an amnesty and a law on the special status, which will really guarantee additional rights to the (self-proclaimed) territories and so long as these rights are not enshrined permanently in Ukraine’s constitution, it is hard to believe that Donetsk and Lugansk will agree to implement in advance what is supposed to wind up the political process under the Minsk Accords rather than to be a preliminary condition," the Russian foreign minister said.