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Düsseldorf (AP) - North Rhine-Westphalia's Prime Minister Armin Laschet (CDU) has called for the restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty over the peninsula on the seventh anniversary of the Russian annexation of Crimea.
The development of Ukraine will be significantly influenced by the illegal international law annexation of Crimea and the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, said the CDU federal chairman on Thursday after a meeting with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Schmyhal in the Düsseldorf State Chancellery.
Permanent compliance with the ceasefire in Donbass and a “new dynamic in the implementation of the resolutions in the Normandy format” would also be needed.
Europe has a great interest in a stable, democratically and economically prosperous Ukraine, said Laschet.
"We support them in the reform course they have embarked on, which will facilitate the path to a European perspective."
Russia annexed Crimea, with a population of more than two million, on March 18, 2014 following a referendum that Ukraine and the EU regard as illegal.
The federal government only asked for the peninsula to be returned to Ukraine on Monday.
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In the Normandy format, Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France have also been trying for years to find a solution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
The name goes back to a first meeting of this kind in 2014 in the French region of Normandy.
Separatists supported by Russia have been in control of parts of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk since April 2014.
UN estimates suggest that more than 13,000 people were killed in fighting between government units and the insurgents.
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