You're reading: Steinmeier calls for mutual withdrawal of armed separatists and Ukrainian military in Donbas

Basel - German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has called for the intensification of actions to separate the conflicting parties in eastern Ukraine.

“Some points of the Minsk protocol are not being fulfilled, including with respect to the line of separation. This needs to be changed,” he said at a press briefing in Basel on Thursday, Dec. 4.

He expressed doubt that the parties were taking concrete steps to that end and called on the parties to return to this issue.

“The Minsk protocol is a basis for settlement,” Steinmeier said.