Ukraine’s opposition yesterday warned that the military might move against anti-government demonstrators, ahead of talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry over the country’s worst crisis since independence.
The warning came hours after the army weighed in on the crisis for the first time, calling on Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to act urgently to end the turmoil.
Piling on the pressure, Moscow warned that the 63-year-leader would lose power if he failed to “quash the rebellion,” while Ukraine’s state security service announced a criminal investigation into what it said was an opposition attempt to seize power.
As fears grew that authorities may be preparing to crush the two-month protest movement, Kerry said the US and the EU “stand with the people of Ukraine.”
“Nowhere is the fight for a democratic, European future more important today than in Ukraine,” Kerry told political, diplomatic and military leaders at a Munich conference.
“The United States and EU stand with the people of Ukraine in that fight,” he said.
Opposition supporters are refusing to leave their protest camp on Kiev’s Independence Square despite a string of concessions from the authorities, including the resignation of prime minister Mykola Azarov.
Several people were shot dead in a recent outbreak of violence in the capital, Kiev.
Opposition leaders began meeting top Western officials in Munich on Friday to try to secure support from Brussels and Washington.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk of the opposition party Batkivshchyna told Germany’s president and foreign minister and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton it was “very likely” the military would use force against the protesters.
His warning came after the defense ministry, which had previously said it would not interfere, said the seizure of public buildings was unacceptable and warned that “further escalation of the confrontation threatens the country’s territorial integrity.”
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he was “very concerned by attempts to involve the military in the crisis.”
Yanukovych on Friday scrapped controversial anti-protest laws that had radicalized the protest movement and signed an amnesty bill for jailed opposition activists, but this will only take effect if protesters vacate the public buildings they have occupied within 15 days.
Germany urged Yanukovych, who has been on sick leave since Thursday, to find a political solution to avoid further confrontation.
“If the fuse on the powder keg is already lit then it is highly dangerous to play for time,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Munich.
“That’s why we have to tell President Yanukovych and his people to quickly and fully meet the commitments he has made to the opposition,” he said.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
MIXED SOURCING: While Taiwan is expanding domestic production, it also sources munitions overseas, as some, like M855 rounds, are cheaper than locally made ones Taiwan and the US plan to jointly produce 155mm artillery shells, as the munition is in high demand due to the Ukraine-Russia war and should be useful in Taiwan’s self-defense, Armaments Bureau Director-General Lieutenant General Lin Wen-hsiang (林文祥) told lawmakers in Taipei yesterday. Lin was responding to questions about Taiwan’s partnership with allies in producing munitions at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. Given the intense demand for 155mm artillery shells in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, and in light of Taiwan’s own defensive needs, Taipei and Washington plan to jointly produce 155mm shells, said Lin,
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