German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan address the media after talks in Berlin February 4, 2014. REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz
BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan agreed in a telephone conversation on Saturday that the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political unity of Ukraine needed to be protected at all costs.
They agreed that the risk of confrontation in Crimea needed to be eliminated and that a referendum planned for March 16 on Crimea joining Russia was "extremely dubious" and "illegal", according to a joint press statement issued by the German government on Sunday.
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