Deal reached on eastern Ukraine ceasefire by year-end

Paris, Dec 10 (SocialNews.XYZ) Ukraine and Russia have agreed on a full and comprehensive implementation of a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine before the end of 2019, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany announced here.

"The parties commit to fully implementing the ceasefire, which will be consolidated by the implementation of all necessary ceasefire support measures, before the end of 2019," said a joint declaration issued by French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday evening.

Following the talks called the 'Normandy Four Summit', the parties also agreed to hold another meeting in a similar format in the next four months, discussing "political and security conditions for local elections", Xinhua news agency quoted the declaration as saying.

"We have discussed all the work that our diplomatic advisors, our foreign ministers need to complete in the next four months in order to ensure the settlement of the local conflict, so that we can hold a new summit in the Normandy format in four months," TASS news quoted Macron as saying.

"We are confident that this work on restoring peace and trust is very important," he added.

Established in June 2014, the Normandy Four is a contact group for senior officials from the four countries to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine that erupted in April 2014.

Monday's summit was the first of its kind in three years.

The last was held in Berlin in 2016.

It was also the first time that Putin and Zelensky met face to face since the latter was elected President earlier this year.

After the four-party talks, the two leaders had a separate one-on-one meeting.

Source: IANS