Berlin talks: Foreign ministers urge sustainable ceasefire in Ukraine

Berlin, July 3: The foreign ministers of

, France,

and

on Wednesday reconfirmed their commitment to sustainable peace and stability in Ukraine and stressed the necessity of achieving a sustainable ceasefire in the crisis-hit country.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his counterpart Laurent Fabius from France, Sergey Lavrov from Russia and Pavlo Klimkin from Ukraine held a meeting in Berlin on Wednesday to discuss ways of calming the situation in Ukraine, Xinhua quoted the German foreign ministry as saying.

The ministers issued a joint declaration after talks, saying a sustainable ceasefire should be agreed upon swiftly and observed by all concerned to put an end to violence in eastern Ukraine.

They urged the contact group to resume with the goal of reaching an unconditional and mutually agreed sustainable ceasefire, which should be monitored by the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine in conformity with its mandate.

The ministers agreed to take all necessary measures and use their influence on the concerned parties with a view to achieving this goal.

They also welcomed Russia's readiness to grant Ukrainian border guards access to Russian territory in order to participate in the control of border crossings at the checkpoints Gukovo and Donetsk while the mutually agreed ceasefire is in place, and invited the OSCE to take all necessary steps to deploy observers in response to the Russian invitation to contribute to a secure environment.

In addition, the ministers emphasised the importance of a swift release of all hostages as well as the need to ensure safety and security of journalists working in the area of violence.

IANS