Russia, Germany, France, Ukraine urge setting up contact group to agree terms for truce
MOSCOW. July 3 (Interfax) - The Russia, German, French and Ukrainian foreign ministers, at a meeting on Wednesday, called for setting up a contact group as soon as possible to agree terms for a new ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"We were able today to agree a declaration, thereby fulfilling a task from our leaders, and we can report that this task has been carried out. The main point of that document is the need to urgently agree terms for a sustained, lasting truce," Lavrov told reporters after the meeting, held in Berlin.
"We propose doing so via the earliest possible convocation of a contact group, which, we hope, will meet within days and agree the terms for a truce that will satisfy all the sides," he said.
"Regrettably, we have lost two days because the ceasefire was not prolonged two days ago, and these two days have evidently persuaded us, if anyone needed any further persuading, that the price of the absence of a ceasefire is very high, the price measured by human lives, serious destruction of civilian infrastructure and the life of one more journalist," Lavrov said.
