Angela Merkel
BERLIN, August 28. /TASS/. German Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel plans holding a telephone conversation with President Vladimir Putin on Saturday and discussing with him a possible summit on Ukraine in the so-called "Normandy format", which implies participation of the leaders of Russia, Germany, France, and Ukraine, Der Spiegel weekly said on Friday.
Bloomberg circulated similar information earlier on the same day but its sources indicated the telephone conversation would also embrace French President Francois Hollande.
However, the official spokesman for the German government, Stefan Seibert declined to confirm or to deny the data saying the governmental press office would report on the telephone talks after they had been held and not earlier than that.
Russian President’s aide Yuri Ushakov said on Thursday he could not rule out that the leaders of the "Normandy Four" countries would have telephone talks shortly.
"They haven’t spoken over the phone so far," he said. "Maybe they’ll do it."
On August 24, Merkel, Hollande and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko held a trilateral meeting in Berlin. Merkel told a news conference upon the end of the meeting contacts with Putin for discussing the situation in Donbas were necessary.
She said contacts with the Russian President should be resumed and a quadripartite meeting might take place.
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