Normandy Four FMs May Meet in Munich Feb 13 to Discuss Ukraine

A source in the Russian Foreign Ministry does not exclude that the meeting in Normandy format may happen on February 13.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The foreign ministers from Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany may convene in Munich on February 13 to discuss the Ukrainian reconciliation process, a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday.

“This date is among others, it’s being discussed and it’s not excluded that it will happen on that day,” the source told RIA Novosti.

The Normandy Four group, comprising the representatives from Ukraine, Russia, Germany, France was created in 2014 to secure a peaceful settlement to the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Kiev launched a military operation in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas in April 2014, after the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk rejected the new central government in Kiev, that came to power after what they considered to be a coup, and proclaimed independence.

In February 2015, the quartet's leaders brokered the Minsk peace deal, later signed by representatives of Kiev and the militias of eastern Ukraine. The Minsk agreements stipulate a ceasefire, a weapons withdrawal from the line of contact in eastern Ukraine, constitutional reforms to decentralize power in the country, and the granting of a special status to the Donbas region.

The sides failed to fulfill the agreements by the end of 2015, as initially intended. The Normandy Four quartet agreed to extend its deadline for completion into this year.