Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Angela Merkel, in early November will fly to Ukraine, according to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko
"This autumn, in early November, German Chancellor Angela Merkel will pay a visit to Ukraine," Poroshenko told a meeting of heads of Ukraine's foreign diplomatic institutions in Kyiv, according to an UNIAN correspondent.
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"This is a very vivid testimony of special attention on the part of our German partners in Berlin to the development of a mutually beneficial partnership with Kyiv," said Poroshenko.
He emphasized that the work on the peace track was never stopped -- in particular, two phone conversations with Angela Merkel were held recently. "Of course, we discussed further steps to intensify the peace process on the implementation of the Minsk agreements, including in the Normandy format. The prospect of deployment of the peacekeeping mission with the mandate of the UN Security Council in the occupied Donbas was also discussed. It is our key task. This is still the only way to create a security component of the Minsk agreements," Petro Poroshenko stressed.
In turn, Ambassador of Ukraine to the Federal Republic of Germany Andrij Melnyk said that the visit of the Federal Chancellor would be the best expression of not only solidarity, but also practical support. "Germany is the largest bilateral donor of Ukraine in terms of technical assistance - more than 0.5 billion euros. Most of these funds came after Maidan, since 2014. Thus, the economic component will also be important. Investments from Germany are increasing. Commodity turnover is over 8 billion dollars as of today," he said, adding that the given figure had overcome the pre-crisis level. Andrij Melnyk stressed that German investments went for the production and creation of jobs.
"The visit is really significant. Symbolic not only in the context of the Minsk process, not only in the context of seeking peace in the Donbas, but also in the bilateral context. So that the Chancellor can see that the country has risen from its knees in four years, that the economy is growing and the German producers also benefit from this growth. And this is also an important element of the fact that the actions and solidarity that is felt in Berlin and Europe, in the western world, are not worthless and help us really become stronger," the Ambassador said.
As UNIAN reported earlier, Chancellor Merkel and U.S. President Donald Trump discussed the situation in Ukraine in a phone conversation Monday, August 27.
