Google – AFP, 2 March 2014
Russia's
President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting in his Novo-Ogaryovo
residence,
outside Moscow on February 26, 2014 (RIA-NOVOSTI/AFP
/File, Mikhail Metzel)
|
Berlin —
Russia's Vladimir Putin has agreed to a proposal from Angela Merkel to set up a
contact group on Ukraine, the German government said Sunday.
The German
chancellor put the proposal to Putin in a telephone conversation late Sunday in
which she also "accused the Russian president of violating international
law with the unacceptable Russian intervention in Crimea," said a
government statement.
"President
Putin accepted the German chancellor's proposal to immediately establish a
mission of enquiry as well as a contact group, possibly under the direction of
the OSCE, to open a political dialogue," it said.
Western
allies have condemned Russia's threat to invade its Western-leaning neighbour,
which analysts say risks sparking the worst crisis since the Cold War.
Merkel told
Putin the intervention was a violation of a 1994 Budapest memorandum on
security assurances in which Russia committed itself to respecting the
independence and sovereignty of Ukraine in its existing borders, as well as the
1997 treaty on the Russian Black Sea fleet, based in Crimea.
The
memorandum was signed by Britain, Ukraine, Russia and the United States.
The
statement said Merkel called on Putin to respect Ukraine's territorial
integrity.
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