'Progress reported' from Berlin Ukraine talks
January 22, 2015
The foreign ministers of Ukraine and Russia, as well as France and Germany, met in Berlin on Wednesday for talks aimed at defusing the conflict in Ukraine.
Emerging from the talks, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said "noticeable progress" had been made about the withdrawal of heavy weapons in accordance with a September agreement. However, he said, there was still no breakthrough.
As the talks got underway, Steinmeier warned that the country's population was paying the price and called for urgency in achieving a resolution.
Hopes had been muted after a January 12 meeting in Berlin ended with no substantial progress.
Battle for army post near Luhansk
Discussions began as fresh clashes erupted between Ukrainian government troops and pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.
The Ukrainian military said on Wednesday that regular Russian troops were involved in fighting at an army checkpoint west of Luhansk. Kyiv maintains that Russian troops engaged in eastern Ukraine are fighting with their tags and insignias removed, an allegation that Moscow has denied.
Attending the meeting along with Steinmeier was Russia's foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, his Ukrainian counterpart Pavlo Klimkin and France's Laurent Fabius.
'Plan to legitimize gains'
Meanwhile, Washington said Russian President Vladimir Putin's latest peace proposal for Ukraine was little more than a blueprint for military occupation.
Lavrov has said both sides should agree to pull back heavy weapons from a previously-agreed dividing line so as to defuse hostilities. However, the Russian foreign minister said nothing about rebels surrendering territory acquired in violation of a peace deal reached in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, last September. Ukraine says the rebels have grabbed 500 square kilometers (190 square miles) in violation of the truce deal.
"The plan would seek to legitimize territorial gains made by separatists in September as well as Russian personnel and equipment on the territory of Ukraine," US Ambassador Samantha Power told the UN Security Council on Wednesday. "Let us pull the veil away from Putin's peace plan and call it for what it is - a Russian occupation plan," she said.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko earlier on Wednesday addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, stressing that Moscow was involved in prolonging the conflict. Brandishing part of a bullet-riddled bus that Ukraine says was hit by Russian missiles killing 13 people last week, Poroshenko claimed it was "a symbol of the terroristic attack against my country."
rc/sb (AFP, dpa, AP, Reuters)