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Russia urges France, Germany to work on Kiev for observing truce deal

Xinhua, March 21, 2015 Adjust font size:

Russia on Saturday urged France and Germany to persuade the Ukrainian authorities to observe the Minsk agreements.

"(France and Germany should) exert influence on the Ukrainian authorities, so that the obligations supported by Petro Poroshenko as President of Ukraine could be fulfilled," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview aired by TV channel Rossiya One.

Russia will make efforts for the strict implementation of the Minsk agreements, as the urgent task now is to deal with Ukrainian law on the status of Donbass, which deviates from the Minsk accords, said Lavrov.

"It's necessary to introduce the law on special status immediately, in line with what has been agreed upon, rather than to delay the process as the Ukrainian authorities hope to win back territories by force," Lavrov said.

Ukrainian parliament on Tuesday amended the law on granting a "special status" to the rebel-controlled areas and declared such areas as "temporarily occupied territories."

Meanwhile, Lavrov accused Kiev's initiative of peacekeeper deployment in Ukraine as "a deceptive maneuver" to divert attention from Ukraine's nonfulfillment of the Minsk agreements.

He reminded that the peacekeeping mission should only be sent under the support of all relevant sides in the Ukraine conflict, while again warning Ukraine's party of war and its "overseas partners" against any attempt to reinterpret and divert the Minsk accords.

According to a Ukrainian bill passed by parliament on Tuesday, official pleas would be sent to the UN and the EU to deploy peacekeeping and security missions in Lugansk and Donetsk regions.

Recent moves of Kiev government have triggered strong criticisms from the Russian side and the two self-proclaimed People's Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, as well as new armed conflicts in eastern Ukraine.

Moreover, Lavrov said Russia has proposed that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) special monitoring mission in Ukraine expand recruitment of monitors.

He also suggested that the OSCE mission should issue daily reports on the Ukraine situation and immediately distribute them among OSCE member states. Endi