Ukraine Talks Fail to Reach Breakthrough, German Envoy Says
- Foreign ministers end talks with `mixed picture' in Berlin
- As truce holds, little movement on holding local elections
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Disagreement over local elections in eastern Ukraine thwarted a breakthrough in talks to end the conflict in Ukraine, Germany’s top envoy said, after citing grinding progress in scaling back fighting that has killed more than 9,000 people in the former Soviet Republic.
While a fragile cease-fire was holding after renewed violence between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops, efforts to hold local votes in rebel-held areas are at a near stand-still, said Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who hosted his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, Ukraine’s Pavlo Klimkin and France’s Jean-Marc Ayrault in Berlin.