“The ceasefire gives us a chance to work on the other things that are so important.We’ve had six months of stagnation and that has worsened the security situation”, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters on Thursday.
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And Ukraine’s military has accused separatists of opening fire on government positions four times since the truce came into force; the rebels say Kyiv has also failed to fully respect the truce.
The two sides had earlier agreed to abide by a ceasefire to coincide with the start of the school year on September 1, which failed to stop the fighting.
“We are again at a crossroads”, Steinmeier told a briefing.
“We see a small sliver of hope in the back-to-school ceasefire. but it is not enough”.
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German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, right, listens French Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development Jean-Marc Ayrault during their meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman in Kiev, Ukraine, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016.
They were the architects of a peace deal drawn up in the Belarus capital Minsk in February 2015 which reduced the intensity of the fighting but has not succeeded in ending the conflict.
“We understand that to implement the Minsk agreements, to force Russian Federation to implement them, we need a clear idea of the sequence of steps and guarantees of their implementation from Russian Federation”, he said.
The ministers also met patients in a psychological rehabilitation clinic, and with some of the 1.7 million people displaced within Ukraine by the conflict.
Moscow denies accusations by Ukraine and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation that it helps the separatists with troops and arms in a rebellion in which over 9,500 people have been killed since spring 2014.
Johnson said that the Minsk process was progressing at a “snail’s pace” but remained the only way of resolving the conflict in the Donbass region, which erupted after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Britain continues to support keeping sanctions on Russian Federation, its foreign minister Boris Johnson said during a visit to Ukraine on Wednesday, adding that London’s position was unchanged by June’s vote to leave the European Union.
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“But it’s up to all sides I think in this conversation to make progress together”.
