Merkel, Hollande arrive in Kyiv to press new Ukraine peace initiative
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande joined top US diplomat John Kerry in Kyiv on Thursday as they mounted a fresh diplomatic push to halt the escalating violence in eastern Ukraine.
Merkel and Hollande met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Thursday and will travel to Moscow for a meeting Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Hollande said he and Merkel will present “a new proposal for a comprehensive settlement based on the territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
Following a meeting between Poroshenko and Kerry earlier in the day, the US secretary of state laid out so-called confidence-building measures that should be taken by Moscow as a first step towards ending the conflict.
“[Russia] should pull back heavy weapons from the ceasefire line and the border,” said Kerry, adding that Poroshenko for his part pledged to honour a special status law that provides greater autonomy to eastern Ukraine.
He also said that the Ukrainian president had promised to push through constitutional reform and to hold free and fair elections in the restive Donbas region.
Ukraine would be provided with a 1-billion-dollar credit line if Kyiv pushes ahead with planned reforms, he added. “Reforms are the best weapon in the fight for democracy.”
The new peace initiative appeared aimed at heading off US considerations of providing heavy arms to Ukraine in its fight against pro-Russian separatists.
The White House said it welcomed the German and French-led efforts to find a diplomatic solution, but remained concerned that Russia and Russian-backed separatists had not stood by their previous agreements.
“We need serious engagement from the Russians and the separatists, the likes of which we’ve not seen before,” spokesman Josh Earnest said.
When asked whether Merkel’s opposition to providing arms to the Ukrainians would influence President Barack Obama’s decision, Earnest noted that the chancellor’s opinion “matters a great deal to the president.”
The leaders will discuss the situation in Ukraine when Merkel arrives in Washington on Monday.
Kerry’s visit comes a day after Obama’s nominee to head the Defence Department said he is “inclined” to provide weapons. “I think we need to support the Ukrainians in defending themselves,” Ashton Carter told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
So far, the United States has provided non-lethal military equipment, such as night-vision goggles and body armour, but stopped short of supplying arms as the White House expressed concerns about escalating the conflict.
The recent ramping-up of the conflict and a spike in civilian casualties “must persuade NATO to provide more support for Ukraine, including the delivery of modern weapons,” Poroshenko said in an interview published Thursday in German newspaper Die Welt.
Western countries are divided on the question of providing military assistance to Ukraine. Germany has led diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict, but is strongly opposed to providing Kyiv with weapons to fight the separatists.
Merkel’s defence minister, Ursula von der Leyen, warned about the repercussions of weapons deliveries, saying the move could give the Kremlin an excuse to openly intervene in the conflict.
“Delivering weapons in this situation is the wrong path,” she said at the meeting of NATO defence ministers. “We have to maintain political and economic pressure on Russia in order to find a solution to the conflict and ease the suffering of civilians in eastern Ukraine.”
More talks over Ukraine are expected during the three-day Munich Security Conference, which begins Friday, including a possible meeting between Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The conflict in eastern Ukraine has claimed more than 200 lives in the last three weeks alone, according to UN figures.
Ertugrul Apakan, head of the Ukraine observer mission of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), said Thursday that the use of heavy weaponry and shelling of civilian areas had increased significantly since peace talks failed in Minsk late last month.