Germany & Ukraine agree conditions for new Normandy Four meeting are met – Merkel’s spokesman

Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky by phone Wednesday, discussing the conflict in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donbass and prospects of a new Normandy Four meeting, her spokesman said.

Merkel and Zelensky agreed that all the prerequisites for such a gathering had been met after the contact group on Donbass agreed on further troop withdrawal and approved the so-called ‘Steinmeier Formula’ earlier this month, spokesman Steffen Seibert confirmed.The Formula is a EU-sponsored roadmap which envisions exactly how elections in the breakaway Republics of Lugansk and Donetsk should be held, as well as when Kiev should implement their “special status” – i.e. autonomy.

Now, Germany and Ukraine, as well as other participants of the Normandy Four – Russia and France – have to decide when such a meeting would take place, Seibert added.