President Emmanuel Macron and Putin in a telephone chat on Sunday agreed to try and reach a ceasefire over Ukraine, as tension continue to grow between Moscow and Kiev.
According to the report by AFP, French Presidents Emmanuel Macron and Putin agreed to do everything possible to quickly reach a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine , the Elysee Palace announced.
Macron and Putin also agreed, during their telephone conversation, on “the need to favour a diplomatic solution to the current crisis and to do everything to achieve it”, added the French presidency, announcing that the Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean- Yves Le Drian would meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov “in the coming days”.
The two leaders agreed to “intense work to enable the holding of a meeting of the trilateral contact group in the coming hours with the objective of obtaining from all stakeholders a commitment to a ceasefire on the line of contact,” said the Elysée.
This contact group brings together Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE under the Minsk Agreements concluded in 2015 to try to settle the conflict in eastern Ukraine between Kiev and pro-Russian separatists.
“Intense diplomatic work will be carried out in the coming days”
To try to stop the escalation “at the borders of Ukraine, where Russia has massed 150,000 men on its territory and in Belarus , according to Westerners, “intense diplomatic work will be carried out in the coming days, especially in Paris ” where several consultations will be conducted”, added the French presidency.
Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Poutine also called for the resumption of discussions in the Normandy format between Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany, Paris and Berlin being mediators in the implementation of the Minsk agreements . This work must resume on “the basis of the proposals made by Ukraine in recent days”, it is specified.
The two presidents also agreed to continue efforts to try to achieve a “meeting at the highest level with a view to defining a new order of peace and security in Europe”.