France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine agree to hold talks on Wednesday to discuss peace plan

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

A summit between France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine is being planned for Wednesday in Minsk, the latest step in a hectic diplomatic effort to find a political solution to the Ukraine conflict, a statement from the German chancellor’s office said.

The leaders of the four countries talked by telephone on Sunday to discuss how to reach a “comprehensive settlement”, Berlin said.

Diplomatic efforts would continue “with the aim of a summit in the ‘Normandie’ format be held in Minsk on Wednesday”, said the statement, using the French term for the four-nation group.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, François Hollande, on Friday flew to Moscow for crisis talks with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, on ending the 10-month-old conflict that has claimed 5,400 lives.

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Merkel then went to the Munich Security Conference, where she met the US secretary of state, John Kerry, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavarov, and the Ukraine president, Petro Poroshenko, to continue work on what Hollande said was “the last chance for peace”.

Merkel, Hollande, Poroshenko and Putin “this morning conducted an extensive telephone conference”, the German statement said.

“They continued to work on a package of measures to achieve a comprehensive settlement of the conflict in eastern Ukraine,” it said.

It added that the signatories of a failed Minsk agreement reached in September – representatives of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Russia and Ukraine, as well the separatists – “will also get together by Wednesday in Minsk”.