Putin-Merkel-Hollande meeting follow up: LIVE UPDATES
Published time: February 07, 2015 08:35
The lengthy negotiations on Friday between the leaders of Russia, Germany and France on working out a solution to the protracted crisis in Ukraine have been called “constructive” by all the parties, and a possible document is in the works to implement the Minsk agreements. They are seen as a real way out if both warring parties in Ukraine – Kiev and the eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions – stick to it.
Saturday, February 7
09:03 GMT:
Aleksey Pushkov, the chairman of the Russian parliament’s Foreign
Policy Committee, believes the talks in Moscow give Ukraine a “chance for peace.”
“(President) Poroshenko is only capable of shelling. The US continues to instigate war. The Merkel-Hollande-Putin talks give peace a chance,” Pushkov said.
08:50 GMT:
Vasily Likhachev, member of the Russian parliament’s committee on CIS
Affairs, said confrontation between Russia and Germany and France over
the Ukraine crisis has been replaced with a positive move. He added that
negotiations in Moscow are a “serious political step” forward.
07:43 GMT:
While Germany seems to be enthusiastic about the peace talks, the US
and UK are likely to create obstacles to the conflict’s resolution,
political analyst Dan Glazebrook told RT.
“Since the last February’s coup (in Ukraine) the role of the US and Britain has consistently been trying to sabotage and scoffer any kind of peace agreement that came on the table,” Glazebrook said.
The West created [Ukrainian] President [Petro] Poroshenko, but he is in many respects the tail that wags the dog, they cannot always rein him in. He is the rogue player, he is the joker in this hand,” Sieff argued.
If Washington goes ahead and sends arms to Ukraine as American hard-liners demand, it will be “a very dangerous move,” Sieff said, adding that Hollande and Merkel seem to have “a much greater sense of responsibility” regarding efforts to resolve the Ukrainian crisis.
“I don’t think they [the US government] are looking at the real situation on the ground in Ukraine, and I don’t think they’re putting this in the wider context of the crisis America is facing, the other crisis, in the Middle East, where they’re trying to contain ISIS [Islamic State] at the moment. Containing ISIS is quite enough for America to have on its hands after two exhausting war in Iraq and Afghanistan; they cannot afford to let Ukraine cut loose with American weapons and American support as well, that would be insane for the US, it will be an imperial overstretch,” Sieff said.
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According to the critic, to resolve the conflict, US President Barack Obama and US Secretary of State John Kerry need to “swallow their pride and get a genuine bilateral relationship going again with President Putin,” as the US-Russia ties are “the most important strategic relationship in the world.” The problem is the lack of debate in Washington about the responsibility of Western powers for the current conflict in Ukraine, as well as the strategic importance and sensitivity of the developments in the region for Russia, he said.