Putin backs Ukraine peace pact as deadline looms

WARRING PARTIES in eastern Ukraine should adhere to a negotiated end-of-year deadline for a fragile seven-month-old peace accord, Russian President Vladimir Putin said as officials met in Berlin to push the settlement forward.

Foreign ministers from Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France who met on Saturday said they made some progress in breathing life into a peace process signed in the Belarus capital Minsk in February, after a truce in eastern Ukraine has held for two weeks. With very few of the other elements of Minsk implemented ahead of the deadline at the end of 2015, Russia this week raised the prospect of extending the pact.

“In principle, we can think of postponing deadlines, but it’s better to aim for implementing what we have reached in Minsk in time,” Mr. Putin told reporters on Saturday during his visit to the ancient Greek ruin of Khersones Tavricheskiy in Crimea, along with former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. “In my view, there is no other alternative to the Minsk agreements for peace and reconciliation,” Mr. Putin said.

The US and the European Union accuse Russia of stoking the 17-month-old military conflict, in which almost 8,000 people have been killed, by sending personnel and weapons over the border into the two Ukrainian regions. Russia denies involvement as the western nations imposed sanctions.

The four foreign ministers cited progress on withdrawing heavy weapons from the frontlines in Ukraine’s Donbas region, exchanging prisoners and gaining access for peace observers. Negotiators are also aiming to move forward on local elections in Ukraine and establishing autonomy for embattled regions when they meet next week. A leaders’ summit with Mr. Putin, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and France’s Francois Hollande will take place on Oct. 2 in Paris.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who hosted his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, Ukraine’s Pavlo Klimkin and France’s Laurent Fabius at a lakeside villa, said the meeting was “less confrontational” than previous gatherings.

“It’s still far from easy, but today I can report some relief,” Mr. Steinmeier told reporters in Berlin, saying that the cease-fire in Donbas had held since Sept. 1. — Bloomberg