Contents tagged with Minsk agreements

  • Steinmeier: Progress on Minsk II is urgently needed

    The Minister for Foreign Affairs of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said that there is still a lot of work to be done to reach a full implementation of the ceasefire agreement in the Donbas region. However, progress on it is "urgently necessary," the German Foreign Minister said during a joint press conference with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Pavel Klimkin, on Thursday, September 8, 2016 in Berlin.

    "With regard to the implementation of the Minsk Agreements, we must also talk …

  • Merkel and Hollande to discuss war in Ukraine at G20 conference

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande plan to discuss the peace process in eastern Ukraine at the forthcoming G20 conference in China, Deutsche Welle reported.

    Merkel stated that the EU is not seeing nearly enough progress in the implementation of the Minsk agreements, and she wants to raise the subject at the meeting of the twenty largest economies in the world.

    "Germany and France agree on this, and we will work together to promote this topic,” the German …

  • Merkel: Sanctions will not be lifted as long as there are Russian tanks in Ukraine

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel acknowledged that both Moscow and Berlin would be interested in lifting anti-Russian sanctions. However, according to her, it is currently impossible because “there has not been one day when the ceasefire has been implemented in the east of Ukraine.”

    “I’m interested in lifting the sanctions, and once we reach progress in the Minsk negotiations, the sanctions will be weakened,” Merkel noted.

    She also noted that she was “shocked when the first Russian tank …

  • Steinmeier: There has been no progress towards implementing the Minsk Agreements

    German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier stated that no progress is being made towards implementing the Minsk Agreements, Reuters reported. “We should work to de-escalate the situation,” Steinmeier said. According to him, the ministers for foreign affairs of Germany, Poland and France have agreed to make more of an effort to settle the conflict in southeastern Ukraine.

    Earlier, the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, and the President of France, …

  • Merkel: The situation with the Minsk Agreements remains complicated

    The situation with the regard to the implementation of the Minsk Agreements remains complicated. This was announced by German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a joint press conference with Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas in Tallinn on the 24th of August.

    “The situation with the implementation of the Minsk Agreements is extremely complicated. We have not achieved everything that we wanted,” she said, adding that “it's necessary to find a way out together and I hope that with joint efforts, …

  • Merkel sees no reason to lift sanctions on Russia

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel sees no reason to lift the economic sanctions against Russia, as stated by the German politician on Friday, August 19, in an interview with the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland media group.

    According to her, Moscow provoked a severe crisis with the annexation of the Crimea and its military operations in eastern Ukraine. "Europe had to respond to the violation of the basic principles of world order," Angela Merkel said.

    According to her, the observance of the …

  • Putin: Ukraine is unwilling to implement the Minsk Agreements

    Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a meeting with the members of the Security Council in the Crimea, accused Ukraine of its "unwillingness or inability" to implement the Minsk Agreements regarding the settlement of the conflict in the Donbas. According to him, this explains Ukraine’s "provocative acts" in the Crimea.

    At the same time Putin expressed hope that this is not Ukraine’s "final choice" and that "common sense will prevail."

    Putin also stated that Moscow is not going to sever  …

  • Steinmeir: It is too early to lift sanctions on Russia

    German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in an interview with Stuttgarter Nachrichten that it is too early to cancel the EU sanctions against Russia.

    "Sanctions are not our final purpose. Our aim is not to maintain sanctions but to resolve the conflict in Ukraine," he stressed.

    We consciously connect them with progress towards the implementation of the Minsk Agreements. If there is tangible progress, we will be able to think about easing the sanctions," the German Minister said.

    " …

  • Separatist leader: Hostilities in the Donbas could resume if Ukraine does not implement Minsk Agreements

    The Chairman of the People's Soviet of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic, Denis Pushilin, warned that open hostilities in the Donbas could resume if Kiev fails to implement the Minsk Agreements, Izvestia reported.

    Pushilin told the newspaper that the situation remains tense in the Donbas, and there has been no progress on reaching a political settlement for the war that has lasted for more than two years.

    “Over the last five to six days, the situation has worsened as much as is possible. …

  • Kuchma’s press secretary: Separatists refuse to negotiate on prisoner exchange

    In the framework of the meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group in Minsk, separatist representatives from the self-proclaimed Republics of the Donbas refuse to hold negotiations regarding the release of prisoners. This was reported on the Facebook page of Darka Olifer, the press-secretary of the Ukrainian representative in the Trilateral Contact Group, Leonid Kuchma, regarding the settlement of the conflict in the Donbas.

    According to Olifer, representatives from the so-called DPR and LPR “ …