Earlier in the day, the 12th meeting of the foreign ministers of the Normandy Four group on the Ukrainian conflict settlement took place in Berlin. The four chief diplomats from Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine discussed issues related to security and local elections in Ukraine's southeastern regions.
"We have made progress in all important points in terms of security. We have agreed on a number of specific measures that are now to be implemented quickly," Steinmeier said after the meeting, as quoted by the German Foreign Ministry's press release.
Kiev launched a special military operation in Ukraine’s southeast in April 2014, after local residents refused to recognize the new Ukrainian authorities that came to power as a result of a coup.
In February 2015, a peace agreement was signed between Ukraine’s conflicting sides in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. The deal stipulates a full ceasefire, a weapons withdrawal from the line of contact in eastern Ukraine, an all-for-all prisoner exchange and constitutional reforms, which would give a special status to the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics in the southeast.
