Ukraine peace talks in Paris overshadowed by Syria conflict
The leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine meet in Paris Friday to consolidate a fragile peace in Ukraine, as Moscow — now heavily engaged in the Syria conflict — eyes relief from biting sanctions.
However while Putin is to hold bilateral talks with French leader Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Syria, officials insist the main order of the day is ironing out kinks in the peace process in Ukraine, where fighting has all but stopped.
Under the Minsk II agreement, eastern Ukraine is supposed to hold local elections by the end of the year and hand back control of the Russian border to the government in Kyiv.
The pro-Russia rebels, however, want to hold local elections under their own terms, which include barring all pro-Ukrainian candidates and holding the polls on days that do not correspond to local elections planned in the rest of Ukraine on October 25 .