KIEV (Sputnik) — Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a telephone conversation Wednesday spoke in favor of holding a meeting of foreign ministers in the Normandy format to discuss the situation in the country’s eastern regions, including the issue of deploying peacekeepers, a press release on the president’s website said.
“Petro Poroshenko and Angela Merkel have agreed to hold the meeting of Foreign Ministers of the Normandy group in the nearest time to negotiate topical issues on the further progress in the fulfillment of the Minsk agreements and the organization of peacekeeping mission in Donbas,” the press release said Wednesday.
The initiative of deploying UN- or EU-mandated peacekeepers to Ukraine's eastern regions was first announced by Poroshenko in February. In mid-March, he submitted a bill to the country's parliament asking the UN Security Council and the Council of Europe to authorize a peacekeeping mission.
Moscow has questioned the need for such a mission since the Minsk agreements between Kiev and eastern Ukraine's independence supporters envisage that only monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) oversee the implementation of the ceasefire and heavy weaponry withdrawal by Ukraine's conflicting sides.
