Ukraine’s president said on Monday that he would meet the leaders of Russia, France and Germany on Jan. 15 in an attempt to restore peace to Kiev’s eastern territories and acknowledged Kiev lacked the resources to regain control by military means.
He said he had spoken with US President Barack Obama about the possibility of him joining talks on the territories where pro-Russian separatists launched a rebellion in April.
“The most important thing is to turn a fragile ceasefire into a stable peace and return previously occupied territories under the control of Ukrainian authorities,” Poroshenko said.
Poroshenko told a news conference that he would meet French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Jan. 15 in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana.
He said Kiev would not compromise on sovereignty and wanted east Ukraine, where more than 4,700 people have been killed since April, as well as Crimea, annexed by Russia in March, back under its control. However, a military solution was not possible.
“We haven’t got the resources for an offensive today,” he said.
Last week, Ukrainian authorities and separatists exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war, in a step towards a de-escalation of the conflict and which coincided with Russia being hit by deep economic troubles linked to lower oil prices and Western economic sanctions.
“Ukraine is paying an enormous price because of aggression, but Russia is also paying heavily,” Poroshenko said.
Poroshenko said Russia had agreed to supply Ukraine with power and coal, in another sign of an easing in tensions.
The uprising by separatists in Ukraine’s east began a month after Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine in March, following the popular overthrow of Ukraine’s Moscow-backed president.
The pro-Western government in Kiev accuses Russia of orchestrating the rebellion in Ukraine’s east, a charge denied by Moscow.
Talks between Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe brokered a ceasefire between Kiev and the rebels in September.
The truce was repeatedly broken by both sides, but violence has eased significantly this month.
On Monday, Poroshenko signed into law Kiev’s renunciation of its neutral status in pursuit of NATO membership.
Russia said last week NATO was turning Ukraine into a “frontline of confrontation” and threatened to sever remaining ties if Ukraine’s hopes of joining NATO were realized.
“When Ukraine will meet those [NATO] criteria — possibly within the next five to six years — then the people of Ukraine will make their choice,” Poroshenko said.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS