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Putin, Merkel, Poroshenko, Hollande to take stock of ceasefire
February 18, 2015, 12:46 pm

File photo of Russian President Vladimir Putin with  his French counterpart François Hollande [PPIO]

File photo of Russian President Vladimir Putin with his French counterpart François Hollande [PPIO]

French President Francois Hollande will hold a four-way telephone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko later this evening, French government spokesman Stephane Le Foll announced Wednesday.

“We will continue, we know we have problems, we know not everything is settled. But between what was before Minsk accord and what we know now, even though everything is not settled, there was still a progress,” said Le Foll.

The tele-conference comes after UN Security Council’s resolution, aiming to endorse the Minsk accords for the now-faltering cease-fire in war-torn sections of eastern Ukraine, adopted last week.

Foll said that the Ukraine ceasefire deal “was not dead” and that France would do “everything to keep the agreement alive”.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday that US Vice-President Joseph Biden’s statement on possible new sanctions against Russia, if the Minsk accords on a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine are not fulfilled, confirm Washington’s unconstructive approach.

“We treat this statement as a pronouncement traditional for Joe Biden containing new threats. Probably, he means that the US will demand from Russia to pay the price, including by forcing EU states to toughen their position,” Lavrov said.

 

Source: Agencies