Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a telephone call on Monday, discussed the situation in eastern Ukraine after a ceasefire was declared there.

"Angela Merkel once again expressed support for ... the passage by the Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian parliament] of the law on a special local government system for individual districts in Donetsk and Luhansk regions and the law on amnesty," the Ukrainian president's office said in a statement.

Poroshenko and Merkel "agreed that the compliance of all the parties with the Minsk Peace Protocol of September 5 and the Memorandum of September 20 will mean progress in the settlement process," the office said.

The two leaders "expressed the shared position" that bilateral compliance with the ceasefire regime, the release of prisoners, "the creation of a buffer zone and effective surveillance and verification in that area" by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe "would mean that all the parties had fulfilled the terms of the agreement," it said.

Poroshenko and Merkel also "discussed the possibility of a third wave of macroeconomic assistance from the European Union to Ukraine," the office said.