Normandy Four agree that truce in Donbass must be unconditionally observed, despite differences

(Sharecast News) - A top Russian government advisor described meetings with his Ukrainian, German and French counterparts to try and resolve the situation in the Donbass region as "not easy, but frank".

According to Russian daily Kommersant, at Wednesday's meeting of the so-called 'Normandy Four' countries, the deputy head of the Presidential Administration of Russia, Dmitry Kozak, said that all participants agreed that the current truce should be observed unconditionally.

That was despite the discrepancies around the 2014 Minsk agreements that were meant to lead to a peaceful resolution of that conflict.

"We had a difficult conversation, but maybe the first such frank conversation in order to conduct an inventory of all the problems associated with the implementation of the Minsk agreements," Kozak said.

He added that Kiev had yet to react positively to all of the proposals of Donetsk and Lugansk on humanitarian and security issues.

Wednesday's meeting was held in Paris and ran for eight and a half hours with the next one due to be held in two weeks' time in Berlin.