Deal on to calm Ukraine tensions
Diplomats agree on initial steps to ease violent crisis
GENEVA — Top diplomats on Thursday laid out a series of steps to tamp down violence and political unrest in Ukraine, even as Western officials publicly doubted Russia’s resolve to help defuse the crisis in the former Soviet republic.
The potential diplomatic breakthrough, which the Russian foreign minister referred to as “a compromise, of sorts,” came after nearly seven hours of negotiations with Secretary of State John Kerry, the Ukrainian foreign minister and the European Union’s foreign policy chief.
Under the agreement, all parties, including separatists and their Russian backers, would stop violent and provocative acts, and all illegal groups would be disarmed.
The seven-paragraph agreement also called for the return of “all illegally seized buildings . . . to legitimate owners” and said that “all illegally occupied streets, squares and other public places in Ukrainian cities and towns must be vacated.”
As Ukraine’s interim government has previously offered, the agreement also grants amnesty to protesters, “with the exception of those found guilty of capital crimes.”
Referring to a portion of the agreement that “rejected all expressions of extremism, racism and religious intolerance, including anti-Semitism,” Kerry noted that “just in the last couple of days, notices were sent to Jews in one city indicated that they have to identify themselves as Jews, and obviously the accompanying threat implied is, or suffer the consequences.”
“In the year 2014 . . . this is not just intolerable,” he said, “it is grotesque.”
Kerry, appearing to address Russia, said it was important for all parties to the agreement to implement it quickly.
“It is important that these words are translated immediately into actions,” Kerry said at a news briefing. “None of us leaves here with a sense that the job is done because of words on a paper.”
A joint statement made no mention of the presence of what the United States has said are 40,000 Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s eastern and southern borders. But Kerry said it made clear that Russia is “absolutely prepared to begin to respond with respect to troops,” provided the terms of the agreement are observed.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he hoped he would not have to deploy troops to Ukraine. But he also seemed to keep the door open for Russia to recognize Ukraine’s presidential election set for May 25, softening his previous demand that it must be postponed until the fall and preceded by a referendum on broader powers for the regions.
In Washington, President Barack Obama said Russia’s stated commitments were only the beginning of a process.
“My hope is that we actually do see followthrough over the next several days, but I don’t think, given past perfor-
It is important that these words are translated immediately into actions. None of us leaves here with a sense that the job is done because of words on a paper.” Secretary of State John Kerry
mance, that we can count on that,” Obama said during a White House press conference.
“We have to be prepared to potentially respond to what continue to be, you know, efforts of interference by the Russians in eastern and southern Ukraine.”
Obama threatened further economic sanctions and stressed American economic and diplomatic support for the Westernoriented government in Kiev. He ruled out a U.S. military response to help Ukraine fend off Russian incursions.
Expectations for the four-way diplomatic session in Geneva were low, so Thursday’s agreement was somewhat surprising. In a hopeful sign, the Russian and Ukrainian ministers negotiated directly for several hours.
Moscow insists the new Kiev government took power in a coup and is illegitimate.
The goal, Obama said, is national elections next month and economic reforms promised by the interim Kiev authorities. The election would bring in a new president to replace Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Moscow president who fled the country in February. Russian moved to annex Crimea from Ukraine shortly afterward.
The situation remained tense across eastern Ukraine late Thursday. In the port city of Mariupol, where Ukrainian forces engaged pro- Russian separatists on Wednesday night, bloodstains marked the asphalt where three militants were killed and 13 wounded after a siege of a military base there. Remains of molotov cocktails were scattered inside the entrance to the base, where nervous young soldiers tried unsuccessfully to keep onlookers from gazing at the wreckage.
“A mob of 300 militants, wielding guns, molotov cocktails and homemade explosives, attacked the Ukrainian military outpost in the city overnight,” Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said in a statement.