Off the wire
• 1st LD Writethru: Indian aid worker released by Taliban in Afghanistan  • 1st LD: Blast kills at least one, injures 10 during march in eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv  • Explosion targets Iranian ambassador's residence in Libya  • Feature: Bangladeshis pay tribute to their martyred language heroes  • Feature: Digital migration spurs uptake of home internet in Kenya  • 2 for 2 for Mayer as he wins super-G  • Urgent: Blast kills 2, injures 5 during march in eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv  • Palestinians accuse Israel of attempting to topple authority  • Year of Sheep Twilight Parade lands on Sydney street  • Six more H7N9 cases reported in China  
You are here: 　 Home

Kiev, rebels agree to start heavy weaponry withdrawal

Xinhua, February 22, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Ukrainian government and the pro-independence insurgents have agreed to withdraw their heavy weapons from the front line in eastern Ukraine over the next two weeks.

"The plan was signed in the early hours of this morning. We have two weeks to remove heavy weapons starting from today," the Interfax news agency quoted senior rebel commander Eduard Basurin as saying.

A government spokesman also confirmed the plan to withdrawal heavy weapons starting from Sunday.

Meanwhile, TASS news agency quoted Basurin as saying that the actual pullout will start from Tuesday and preparations are underway.

The pullback is part of the latest cease-fire deal agreed upon among the Contact Group members over Ukraine crisis in the Belarusian capital of Minsk where leaders of Russia, France, Germany and Ukraine helped materialize the hard-won deal after overnight talks on Feb. 12.

The situation in eastern Ukraine seems to show encouraging progress as Kiev and the insurgents swapped altogether nearly 200 prisoners of war on Saturday evening as they had planned and no shelling, according to the Interfax, was recorded throughout the night. Endi