KIEV (Sputnik) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande have left the administration building of the Ukrainian president after four-hour talks with Petro Poroshenko.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has announced the leaders have discussed “specific steps” aimed at ensuring the implementation of the Minsk agreements.
Good mtg of Normandy Troika. Minsk agts- roadmap to peace&territorial integrity of Ukraine. Specific steps 2 ensure implementation discussed
— Pavlo Klimkin (@PavloKlimkin) 5 февраля 2015
The leaders did not make any press statements.
Earlier, media representatives were asked to leave the administration premises, while Merkel, Hollande and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko discussed the ongoing conflict in Ukraine's southeast.
Hollande and Merkel arrived in Kiev Thursday to present a new plan for settling the Ukrainian crisis. The leaders will continue Ukraine talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Friday.
Fighting in southeastern Ukraine intensified at the start of 2015, with the cities of Donetsk, Mariupol and Debaltseve being the hot spots of violence.
Kiev launched a military operation against independence supporters in the region last spring, in response to local residents' refusal to recognize the new coup-installed government.
Despite a truce agreed upon between the two sides at a Minsk meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine in September, attended by Russian representatives, ceasefire violations have continued in southeastern Ukraine with both Kiev forces and independence fighters trading blame for the violence.
