(VOVworld) - Hopes have collapsed for a 4-party summit in Kazakhstan to seek a solution to the crisis in Ukraine due to a lack of necessary conditions for such a summit to be held. After a four-hour meeting in Berlin with his Russian, Ukrainian, and French counterparts, German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier said the meeting was a "very open exchange" but did not produce the results needed for the countries to go ahead with a meeting of their leaders in Kazakhstan that had been proposed for Thursday.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters in Berlin late Monday that a four-hour meeting with counterparts from Russia, Ukraine and France failed to make progress toward resolving the Ukraine conflict. (Michael Ukas / Pool Photo)

He added that differences between involved parties made progress difficult to achieve. He said representatives from their ministries would meet instead in the coming days to see if they could bridge differences, and raised the possibility that the foreign ministers could meet again after that.