Peace talks in
Paris on Thursday (3 March) saw France give Ukraine a deadline on holding
warzone-elections in the run-up to an EU decision on Russia sanctions in July.
In a separate
event, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said Ukraine won’t
join the EU for at least 20 years.
French foreign
minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told press after meeting his German, Russian, and
Ukrainian counterparts in Paris that Kiev must deliver on a promise to hold
local elections in what are in effect Russia-occupied regions in east Ukraine.
“We underlined
the importance of adopting an electoral law to hold local elections by the end
of the first half of 2016,” he said, according to French media.
Russian
foreign minister Sergei Lavrov echoed Ayrault.
He told
Russian media that Kiev must implement the so-called Minsk ceasefire deal by
devolving power to regions, passing a law on local elections in the conflict
zone, and granting legal amnesty to the authorities of two self-proclaimed
republics in east Ukraine.
He said
there’s “no progress” on Minsk implementation due to Kiev’s “unwillingness” to
move.
Ukrainian
foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin denied Ayrault’s report of an elections deal,
however.
Asked if there
had been a breakthrough at the Paris event, he said: “No. I don't have that
impression.” He added that security conditions in east Ukraine are not adequate
to hold a credible vote.
Germany’s
Frank-Walter Steinmeier criticised both Russia and Ukraine.
“I am not
satisfied with the way Kiev and Moscow are operating the negotiations here,” he
said after the Paris meeting. He warned that the conflict “can escalate again
at any time.”
Russia
‘flouts’ Minsk
France and
Germany speak for the EU in the Ukraine peace process, in the so-called
Normandy format.
Ayrault’s
“first half of 2016” timeline is important because EU economic sanctions on
Russia expire in late July.
His statement
comes amid concern in Kiev that some EU capitals intend to relax the sanctions
on grounds that Ukraine isn't doing its bit.
But a senior
US diplomat, Daniel Baer, who represents Washington at the OSCE, a European
body created to keep the peace after the Cold War, earlier on Thursday accused
Russia of being the main culprit on Minsk non-compliance.
He said that
“combined-Russian separatist forces” in east Ukraine, in the run-up to the
Paris talks, escalated fighting to its “highest level since August 2015” and
that Russia “continues to flout” Minsk provisions on withdrawing troops and
armour.
“This violence
… calls into question Russia’s and the separatists’ commitment to full implementation
of the Minsk agreements,” he said.
US economic
sanctions on Russia “will remain in place until … Russia ends its occupation of
Ukrainian territory,” he said.
EU ‘soft
power’
The Paris
talks come amid EU and US efforts to also implement a ceasfire accord in Syria.
Russia, which
is conducting air strikes to help its ally, the Syrian regime, reconquer
territory has become a leading player in the conflict.
Its
warfighting has prompted tens of thousands of refugees to flee toward Europe,
in what a top Nato general has said amounts to “weaponising migration” in a bid
to break European resolve.
British PM
David Cameron, who met French president Francois Hollande in Amiens, France, on
Thursday, said the two men and German chancellor Angela Merkel will on Friday
hold a teleconference with Russian leader Valdimir Putin.
“We will
underline that Russia needs to end its attacks on Syrian civilians,” Cameron
said.
The German
finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, at a lecture in the London School of
Economics the same day echoed Nato’s concern.
He said,
according to the Reuters news agency, that Putin fears that Europe's "soft
power” is moving closer to Russia. "That's why [Putin’s] trying to weaken
Europe, by dividing us and tempting us to think only in narrow national terms,
and we must not play into his hands," he said.
Juncker factor
Speaking at
separate event in The Hague also on Thursday, European Commission president
Jean-Claude Juncker said: “Ukraine will definitely not be able to become a
member of the EU in the next 20 to 25 years, and not of Nato either.”
He said the EU
in the past moved too quickly on enlargement. “We will not make that mistake
again,” he said at Thursday’s lecture, which was hosted by the opposition
centre-right CDA political party.
His remarks
were designed to reassure eurosceptic voters ahead of a Dutch referendum on 6
April on the EU-Ukraine free trade treaty.
The
citizen-enforced referendum is non-binding. But a big No vote could cause a
“crisis” in EU foreign policy, Juncker said earlier.
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