"We came to Kyiv with the pledge from Moscow that the separatists' weapons will fall silent at midnight," he said at a joint press conference with his Ukrainian and French counterparts in Kyiv on Wednesday, September 14.
He also said that while meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on the same day the Ukrainian authorities had confirmed that Ukraine had been observing the ceasefire. "We are glad that Ukraine will also respect the ceasefire from midnight on," Steinmeier said.
"It would be a big step forward and would open a window of opportunity if weapons stayed quiet for seven days," the German Foreign Office tweeted on the same day, quoting Steinmeier as saying.
The German foreign minister is hopeful of further disengagement in case the ceasefire is observed.
Read alsoPoroshenko: Ceasefire in Donbas observed for 12 hours"We hope that the Trilateral Contact Group will agree on this particular issue at a meeting next Tuesday," he said.
As UNIAN reported, late in August, the Trilateral Contact Group agreed on a truce from September 1, after which Donbas saw considerable de-escalation, which was followed by a new round of escalation.
Read alsoATO HQ: Militants increase number of attacks, sniper groups involvedMeanwhile, leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic Alexander Zakharchenko and leader of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic Igor Plotnitsky announced on Tuesday, September 13, they were ready to cease fire in Donbas starting from 00:00 local time on September 15.
Anti-Terrorist Operation speaker for the Ukrainian presidential administration Andriy Lysenko says that the militant chiefs are playing peacemaker roles for the international community, as Ukraine has been observing the September 1 truce already.
