The leaders of Ukraine, Germany, France, and Russia
agreed to draw up a road map by the end of next month to carry out the Minsk
peace agreement for eastern Ukraine.
After six hours of talks
on the wars in Ukraine and Syria in Berlin on October 19-20, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel emerged to say the leaders "didn't achieve miracles,"
but the road map would enable all sides to keep pushing ahead with the 2015
Minsk peace agreement.
The leaders also
discussed creating zones of disengagement between the warring parties in
eastern Ukraine, as well as measures to improve the humanitarian situation
there, she said.
"It's urgently
necessary to keep having such talks in order not to lose momentum," she
said.
Ukrainian President
Petro Poroshenko said the road map "should have the sequence of the
implementation of the Minsk agreements and guarantee their
implementation."
He also said they agreed
to withdrawals of Ukrainian troops and Russia-backed separatists in four new
areas on the front line of the fighting in the Donbas region.
The leaders also agreed
on deploying an armed police mission in eastern Ukraine, allowing monitors from
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to be armed and
given unimpeded access in the region.
The OSCE said in May
that it would consider sending an armed mission to help conduct elections in
separatist-held areas.
Poroshenko said that
Germany, the current chair of the OSCE, would present the mission proposal to
the organization.
But he said elections in
Donbass would not occur until all foreign forces are withdrawn.
Separatist violence
erupted in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and has killed 9,600 people so far despite
the Minsk cease-fire deal.
With reporting by Reuters, AP, dpa, and TASS
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