US urges Moscow to reject Sunday’s vote in Crimea to join Russia and secede … – Regina Leader
The EU and U.S. will impose sanctions as early as Monday.
“If the referendum takes place, there will be some sanctions,” Kerry said. “There’ll be some response.”
British Prime Minister David Cameron echoed the sanctions threat.
“We want to see Ukrainians and the Russians talking to each other,” Cameron told Kerry in a separate meeting Friday in London. “And if they don’t, then there are going to have to be consequences.”
But Lavrov issued his own warning that sanctions could further entrench Russia.
“Our partners also realize that sanctions are counterproductive,” he said.
U.S. Sen. John McCain, in Kyiv on Friday, pledged to help send an array of armaments, ranging from combat infantry rifles to anti-tank weapons, to Ukraine as quickly as possible. Ukraine’s military is largely poorly trained, but McCain pointed to the looming Russian troops as enough reason to help the country defend itself.
“Would you like them to throw rocks?” said McCain, a hawkish Republican from Arizona. “If that’s what they’re literally begging for, why should we judge whether we give it to them or not?”
Ukraine’s best hope now is for Crimea to declare autonomy but remain a part of the country.
Officials said Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk is willing to give Crimea nearly unparalleled latitude in governing itself, while working to resolve concerns with Kyiv over taxes and language differences. Officials in Kyiv and the West also may have to settle for Crimea becoming a quasi-independent state like Trans-Dniester, a breakaway state from Moldova with strong Russian loyalties.
In Kyiv, authorities made a last attempt to prevent Crimea from seceding. Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov annulled a recent Crimean parliamentary vote to immediately become an independent state were the region to break off from Ukraine.
Heightening the tensions, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement claiming it reserves the right to intervene in eastern Ukraine in defence of ethnic Russians who it claims are under threat.
The ministry said clashes overnight Thursday in the eastern city of Donetsk showed that Ukrainian authorities had lost control of the country and couldn’t provide basic security. The clashes broke out, however, when a hostile pro-Russian crowd confronted pro-government supporters. At least one person died and 29 were injured.
Ukraine responded by calling the Russian statement “impressive in its cynicism.”
The Donetsk clashes had “a direct connection to deliberate, destructive actions of certain citizens of Russia and some Russian social organizations, representatives of which are present in our country to destabilize the situation and escalate tensions,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Evgeny Perebiynis said, according to the Interfax news agency.
The U.N. assistant secretary-general for human rights, Ivan Simonovic, told reporters Friday in Kyiv there was “no sign of human rights violations of such a proportion, of such widespread intensity that would require any military measures.”
At his news conference, Kerry plaintively said room for negotiations still exists — but only if Russia respects Ukraine’s borders and sovereignty, and doesn’t wrest away Crimea. He said any attempts by Moscow to do otherwise would be “a decision of enormous consequence with respect to the global community.”
“It would be against international law and, frankly, fly in the face of every legitimate effort to try to reach out to Russia and others to say there is a different way to protect the interests of Crimeans, to protect Russia’s interests and to respect the integrity of Ukraine and the sovereignty of Ukraine,” Kerry said.
Lavrov flatly rejected any blame.
“The crisis,” he said, “was not caused by Russia.”
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Peter Leonard and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, and Maria Danilova and Jim Heinz in Kyiv contributed to this report.
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Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/larajakesAP and Cassandra Vinograd at https://twitter.com/CassVinograd