Angela
Merkel, Francois Hollande, and Vladimir Putin held closed-door talks for hours
on the Ukraine conflict. Putin seemed unlikely to bend as the separtists gained
ground.
Deutsche Welle, 6 Feb 2015
France's
Francois Hollande and Germany's Angela Merkel left Moscow after several hours
of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin without reaching an agreement to
resolve the crisis in Ukraine. There were no photo-ops with handshakes or
smiles, no press conference, only three tense faces around a small table in an
ornate room in the Kremlin.
The
last-minute dash to Moscow is the first for Merkel since the start of the
Ukraine crisis while Hollande made a brief stopover in December. The European
duo hoped to curb the rising tide of violence in eastern Ukraine between
government forces and pro-Russian separatists, but no one was particularly
optimistic about the outcome of the meeting.
The French
president said he and Merkel would present "a new proposal for a
comprehensive settlement based on the territorial integrity of Ukraine,"
to Putin and denied rumors that the plan actually came from the Kremlin.
Speaking in
Berlin before her own flight to Moscow, Chancellor Merkel said she was
"convinced that there is no military solution to this conflict," but
took a realistic view of her Russian trip, saying no one could be sure they
would "manage to achieve a truce through these talks."
An official
speaking anonymously to Reuters news agency said that it is unlikely Putin
would make any concession, as he "does not appear to have any incentive to
back down now" while the separatists are gaining ground.
Top NATO
commander Philip Breedlove also warned on Friday that any ceasefire must be
monitored by a group like the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE), because the last truce agreed upon in Minsk in September was
used by the separatists to regroup and rearm.
Ukraine at
the top of the agenda in Munich
The
situation in Ukraine also took highest priority at an international security
conference in Munich, where the debate over whether or not to arm Ukraine
showed cracks between the EU countries, who flatly rejected such an idea, and
the United States, which appears to be considering it.
Ursula von der Leyen opened the conference attended by dozens of world leaders and defense ministers |
"The
support with arms from Russia to the separatists is potentially unlimited. And
do we really count on being able to provide as many arms to the Ukrainian army
that they could potentially conquer the other side?" von der Leyen asked
the conference.
British
Defense Secretary Michael Fallon echoed von der Leyen's concerns, saying that
sending weapons would only "escalate the conflict."
The
Franco-German peace effort is an attempt to reestablish a truce to a conflict
that has killed more than 5,000 people before European leaders met next week to
discuss imposing new economic sanctions on Russia.
es/bw (AP, AFP, Reuters)
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