NATO secretary general calls for urgent implementation of Minsk accords

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg

ANTALYA, May 13. /TASS/. The Minsk agreements on Ukraine crisis settlement must be implemented in full, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday ahead of the Foreign Ministerial Meeting of NATO in Turkey’s Belek.

Stoltenberg called for the full implementation of the Minsk accords, observance of ceasefire regime and heavy weaponry withdrawal. "Now is the time to act… there is urgency when it comes to fulfilling the Minsk agreement," the NATO secretary general said.

Ceasefire is one of the key points of the Minsk agreements on the Ukrainian settlement. Other points include heavy weaponry withdrawal, prisoner exchange, local elections in Donbass and constitutional reform in Ukraine.

The Minsk accords were signed on February 12, after negotiations in the so-called Normandy format in the Belarusian capital Minsk, bringing together Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The talks lasted for around 14 hours. Simultaneously, a meeting of the Contact Group on Ukrainian settlement was held in Minsk.

The Ukrainian forces and the self-defense forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics have repeatedly accused each other of violating ceasefire and other points of the Minsk agreements.

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