Pavlo Klimkin: the meeting in Berlin – a 5 minute walk and 5 hours of hard conversation

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Kyiv, August 18, 2014 – Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Pavlo Klimkin spoke about the results of yesterday’s quadrilateral meeting in Berlin. The German, French, Ukrainian and Russian Ministers for Foreign Affairs discussed the situation in Ukraine. “Yesterday’s four-party meeting in Berlin was already dubbed by the press ‘5 minutes of walking and 5 hours of hard talks.’ We discussed the issue of efficient border control, ensuring a full-scale presence of OSCE representatives, and release of hostages. A ceasefire is only possible if these three conditions are met,” Pavlo Klimkin explained major points of Berlin talks during a press briefing at the Ukraine Crisis Media Center. According to Pavlo Klimkin, the head of the Russian MFA refused to guarantee that these demands will be met.

The Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs noted that during yesterday’s meeting, as opposed to the previous ones, the heads of the Foreign Affairs Ministries of the four countries “agreed not to work on declaration and form, but to concentrate on the essence, on the meeting itself.”

Pavlo Klimkin emphasized once again that Ukraine is only ready to reach a truce in case Russia makes a genuine effort to deescalate the conflict in Donbas and halts supplying weapons and mercenaries to Ukrainian territory.