MOSCOW, October 24 (RIA Novosti) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday that lifting sanctions against Russia was unnecessary.
"We do not find it necessary to speak about lifting sanctions against Russia," Merkel said on the sidelines of the European Summit in Brussels, as quoted by Deutsche Welle.
The German chancellor explained her position by citing the fact that the Minsk agreements have not been fully implemented. In particular, ceasefire is not observed in eastern Ukraine.
On September 19, representatives from Russia, Ukraine, the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) formulated a memorandum of nine provisions to regulate the implementation of a ceasefire agreement between Kiev and independence supporters in eastern Ukraine reached during the previous talks of the so-called Contact Group in Minsk on September 5. Since then, both the Kiev forces and independence fighters have been accusing each other of violating the truce.
