Putin agrees to contact group - German government

Source: AFP, Tanjug

BERLIN -- Russian President Vladmir Putin has agreed to a proposal from German Chancellor Angela Merkel to set up a contact group on Ukraine, the German government said.

(Beta/AP)

"President Putin accepted the German chancellor's proposal to immediately establish a mission of inquiry as well as a contact group, possibly under the direction of the OSCE, to open a political dialogue," a statement said on Sunday, AFP reported.
During a telephone conversation with Merkel late on Sunday Putin stressed that the measures undertaken by Russia regarding the crisis in Ukraine were completely adequate, and pointed out to the undiminished threat of violence from ultranationalist forces that Russian citizens and Russian-speaking residents in Ukraine are exposed to.

Merkel, on the other hand, accused the Russian president of violating international law with the unacceptable Russian intervention in Crimea, said the German government statement.

Merkel told Putin the Russian intervention was a violation of a 1994 Budapest memorandum on security assurances in which Russia committed itself to respecting the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine in its existing borders, as well as the 1997 treaty on the Russian Black Sea fleet, based in Crimea.

The statement said Merkel called on Putin to respect Ukraine's "territorial integrity," AFP reported.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has been quoted as telling the ARD television that it was top priority for Kiev and Moscow to engage in conversation and that setting up an international contact group "could in this case be of use."