Kyiv offers amnesty to pro-Russian separatists if they surrender government …
Parliament’s minority pro-Russian factions have been pushing a bill to amnesty
the separatists that the Western-leaning majority has refused to support.
But Mr Turchynov announced that he preferred a peaceful end to the standoff
and was willing to guarantee the militants’ safety if they walked out of the
buildings quickly.
“If people lay down their arms and free the administration buildings, we
do not need to adopt any amnesty laws,” said Mr Turchynov.
“We guarantee that we will not launch any criminal proceedings against
them. I am ready to formalise this in a presidential decree,” he
promised.
“We can solve this problem today.”
A pro-Russian protester guards a barricade outside the regional state
administration building in Donetsk (AFP)
The Donetsk separatists had earlier proclaimed the creation of their own “people’s
republic” and called on President Vladimir Putin to push the tens of
thousands of troops now massed along Ukraine’s border into its eastern
industrial heartland.
Many in Ukraine’s southeast – a region with a much longer history of Russian
control that stretches back to tsarist times – are wary of the more
nationalist leaders who rose to power in Kyiv and have been looking to Mr
Putin for help.
But the two building occupations have drawn only small rallies of supporters
and some polls show that the region’s majority would actually prefer
avoiding joining the Russian Federation.
The negotiations in Donetsk – a blue-collar coal mining region where ousted
president Viktor Yanukovych made his political career – have involved some
of Ukraine’s most powerful security officials as well as its richest tycoon.
Officials said businessman Rinat Akhmetov and the region’s governor have both
joined Kyiv’s efforts to tone down the militants’ demands.
“They are working on a peaceful solution, and this fills us with optimism,”
said First Deputy Prime Minister Vitaliy Yarema.
Mr Akhmetov – his wealth estimated by Forbes magazine at $11.4 billion (8.2
billion euros) – was a key financial backer of Mr Yanukovych who is thought
to wield tremendous influence throughout Donetsk.
But he is believed to be trying to establish closer relations with the new
pro-Western leaders who are likely to prevail in snap May 25 presidential
polls.
Both Washington and EU nations have accused the Kremlin of orchestrating the
unrest in the east in order to have an excuse to invade the region – a
charge stiffly denied by Moscow.
But a seeming breakthrough in the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War
era emerged Tuesday when US and EU diplomats managed to convince both Moscow
and Kyiv to come together for four-way negotiations that one source in
Brussels said should be held in Vienna on April 17.
At stake are not only the vast ex-Soviet state’s territorial integrity and
political future but also the fate of the West’s relations with Moscow and
all the repercussions this carries for global security in the coming years.
Mr Putin signalled on Wednesday that he expected the talks to follow his idea
of turning Ukraine into a loose federation whose eastern regions could
establish their own diplomatic and trade relations with Russia – a proposal
rejected by Kyiv outright.
“I hope that the initiative of Russian foreign ministry on adjusting the
situation and changing it for the better will have consequences, and that
the outcome will be positive,” Mr Putin told a televised government
meeting.
“At the very least, I hope that the acting (leaders) will not do anything
that cannot be fixed later,” Mr Putin added without specifying what
kind of mistakes he had in mind.
But a top US official said Washington was not setting the bar too high for the
negotiations even if it did welcome the opportunity to have direct talks.
“I have to say that we don’t have high expectations for these talks but
we do believe it is very important to keep that diplomatic door open and
will see what they bring,” US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria
Nuland said in Washington.
Edited by Hannah Strange