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FMs to meet in Berlin on Ukraine crisis

Xinhua, January 21, 2015 Adjust font size:

Foreign ministers from Germany, France, Russia, and Ukraine are scheduled to meet in Berlin on Wednesday for talks over the Ukraine crisis, said the German Foreign Ministry on Tuesday.

The meeting is to be held on Wednesday evening in the German capital. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the meeting was at the request of his counterparts in Russia and Ukraine as the situation in eastern Ukraine had deteriorated with a flare-up of new fighting.

"We have talked intensively in the last days to find political compromises in the increasingly difficult situation," Steinmeier said in a statement.

"It is time now to further limit military conflicts and to prevent a renewed political escalation between Kiev and Moscow. This is worth every effort," he said.

On Monday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called for international talks as soon as possible to settle the crisis in the country's eastern region and implement the Minsk peace deal.

He said Kiev was open to peace talks in the so-called Normandy format group comprising Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France, on top of the trilateral contact group of Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Endit