KYIV – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has reassured Ukraine that sanctions against Russia will remain in place unless Moscow fulfills its obligations under the Minsk agreement reached last year, He also announced additional humanitarian aid for Kyiv. (See fact sheet on page 3).
Mr. Kerry spoke at a joint news conference in Kyiv with President Petro Poroshenko on July 7, a day before NATO leaders met in Warsaw for a crucial summit to which the Ukrainian president was also invited.
Messrs. Kerry and Poroshenko discussed progress toward implantation of the Minsk deal, which is aimed to end the conflict between government forces and Russia-backed separatists that has killed more than 9,300 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014. It began shortly after Russia seized the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.
President Poroshenko stressed Ukraine’s demands for security. “There cannot be effective progress without comprehensive and sustainable security,” he said. “We insist on decisive implementation.”
U.S. officials say Ukraine has completed most of its obligations under the Minsk agreement that relate to providing the separatist-held parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, also known as the Donbas, with greater autonomy.
But the officials say Moscow and the separatists have not done their part on key security issues such as ensuring a ceasefire, withdrawing heavy weapons, providing full access to Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitors, and restoring Ukrainian control to border crossings.
“Ukraine is making a good-faith effort to implement Minsk,” Mr. Kerry said, adding that the same message was relayed by President Barack Obama to Russian President Vladimir Putin during their phone call on July 6.
“President Putin indicated that he does have a desire to see this process move forward, as does President [Barack] Obama,” Mr. Kerry said, adding that the international community would welcome proof of Russia’s choosing “the path to de-escalation and full implementation of Minsk.”
“If Russia does not move in the direction of embracing that possibility and de-escalating, then the sanctions will remain in place. The same is true with respect to Crimea,” the secretary of state warned.
“Without real security in the Donbas, an end to the bloodshed on the contact line [between Ukrainian and separatist forces], the use of heavy weapons, the blockading the OSCE access, without that, Minsk is doomed to fail,” Mr. Kerry stated.
While there is little prospect of Ukraine joining NATO in the near future, Mr. Poroshenko said the alliance must keep its doors open despite Russian opposition.
He said Ukraine expected the Warsaw summit to uphold “the positions adopted at the NATO summit in Bucharest [in 2008] – the key of which is that NATO’s doors are open to any European country.”
Mr. Kerry lauded Ukraine’s efforts at judicial, legislative and economic reforms, as well as a new anti-corruption program.
He also announced that the United States will provide nearly $23 million in additional humanitarian aid to help people affected by the crisis in eastern Ukraine.
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The U.S. State Department said on July 11 that Secretary of State Kerry would travel to Moscow on July 14-15 to meet with senior Russian officials to discuss Syria, the Ukraine conflict, and the standoff between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
With reporting by Reuters, AP and DPA.
Copyright 2016, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington DC 20036; www.rferl.org (for the full text of this story, see http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-russia-us-kerry-sanctions-remain-unless-minsk-fulfilled/27844511.html).