The foreign ministers of Germany, France, and Poland have agreed that there should be greater international efforts to reduce tensions in eastern Ukraine.
Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier made the announcement on August 28 after talks with his French and Polish counterparts in the German town of Weimar.
More than 9,500 people have been killed in fighting between government forces and Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine’s east since April 2014.
Steinmeier said there had not been sufficient progress in implementing the February 2015 Minsk accords aimed at settling the conflict.
"We have to work for a deescalation of the situation," the German minister said.
Western officials were talking with Moscow and Kyiv to encourage them to implement measures already agreed in the Minsk process, including local elections in the separatist-held areas of eastern Ukraine, Steinmeier also said.
