International News

PARIS, (APP/AFP): Crucial elections should be held in
eastern Ukraine by the end of July, the foreign ministers of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France agreed Thursday, but questions remain over Kiev and Moscow’s ability to seal the deal.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said that the Paris meeting
was a “step forward” for the restive region, but his German and Ukrainian counterparts painted a gloomier picture of negotiations.
“We underlined the importance of adopting an electoral law to hold
local elections by the end of the first half of 2016,” Ayrault said at the close of the meeting.
Ukraine’s Pavlo Klimkin, however, repeated Kiev’s insistence that
there can be no polls in the country’s east until a total cessation of hostilities with separatist rebels.
“We must be able to ensure these elections are organised safely, we
need our territory to be secure,” he said.
While Western powers see elections as an opportunity for the region
to be brought back into national politics, Kiev fears that Moscow — which is accused of militarily supporting the rebels — will use polls to destabilise the entirety of the former Soviet Republic.
Klimkin said there was “large weaponry hidden in the east” and
complained of a lack of access to the border with Russia.
Ukraine had proposed measures to reclaim control of the border in
order to stop “the entry of arms, munitions, Russian mercenaries and troops, but the Russian side did not want to discuss a number of points in detail,” he said.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier complained of a lack of engagement on both sides.
“I am not satisfied by the way in which Kiev and Moscow have been
leading these negotiations,” he said, adding the two sides need to “work together in a more constructive manner.”