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Prime Minister Stephen Harper has vowed to “never accept the illegal occupation of Ukraine by Russia,” but won’t say whether Canada could give Ukraine weapons and other “lethal” military aid to fight Russian-backed rebels.

Appearing alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel following an hour-long, closed-door meeting on Parliament Hill Monday, Harper sounded cautious as he discussed the crisis in Ukraine, where more than 5,000 people have died in a year of fighting.

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The prime minister praised efforts by Merkel and French President Francois Hollande to negotiate a resolution to the crisis. The past week has seen the two European leaders conducting whirlwind visits to Kyiv, Moscow and, in Merkel’s case, Washington to negotiate a peace deal.

Merkel’s brief stop in Ottawa came on the heels of a similar meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington. She and Hollande are due to sit down with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Minsk, Belarus, for peace talks Wednesday.