Ukraine crisis talks produce agreement to ‘de-escalate’ tensions

GENEVA // Top diplomats from the United States, European Union, Russia and Ukraine reached agreement on Thursday on immediate steps to ease the crisis in Ukraine.

The agreement, reached after seven hours of negotiation in Geneva, requires all sides to refrain from violence, intimidation or provocative actions.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov announced the plan to “de-escalate” dangerously high tensions in the former Soviet republic.

“We adopted a document, the Geneva statement of April 17, where we agreed on immediate initial steps to de-escalate tensions,” Mr Lavrov said.

“All illegal armed groups must be disarmed, illegally seized buildings returned to their rightful owners,” he said.

Pro-Kremlin separatists who have wreaked havoc in Ukraine’s south-east in recent days, occupying state buildings in several towns and cities in what has severely destabilised the country.

The West had come to the Geneva talks hoping to persuade Moscow to disband these militias, although Russia has always denied any links to them.

US secretary of state John Kerry said the deal “represents a good day’s work”. But he said “words on paper” would have little meaning if they are not followed by actions on all sides.

“If we’re not able to see progress on the immediate efforts, to be able to implement the principles of this agreement this weekend, then we will have no choice but to impose further costs on Russia,” he said.

The agreement also gives amnesty to protesters who comply with the demands, except those found guilty of committing capital crimes.

Monitors with the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe will be tasked with helping Ukraine authorities and local communities comply with the requirements outlined in the agreement. And Kiev’s plans to reform its constitution and transfer more power from the central government to regional authorities must be inclusive, transparent and accountable — including through the creation of a broad national dialogue.

The tentative agreement could put on hold — for now at least — economic sanctions the West had prepared to impose on Russia if the talks were fruitless. And that would ease international pressure both on Moscow and nervous European Union nations that depend on Russia for their energy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin criticised the US and its European allies for having what he called a double standard and said he hoped he would not have to deploy troops to Ukraine.

Ukraine was hoping to use the Geneva talks — the first of their kind over the crisis that threatens the new government in Kiev — to placate Russia and calm hostilities with its neighbour even as the US prepared a new round of sanctions to punish Moscow for what it regards as fomenting unrest.

Meanwhile, Russia was honing a strategy of its own: Push the West as far as possible without provoking crippling sanctions against its financial and energy sectors or a military confrontation with Nato.

In a television appearance in Moscow on Thursday, Mr Putin denied claims that Russian special forces were fomenting unrest in eastern Ukraine. He called the Ukrainian government’s effort to quash the uprising a “crime”.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine last month and said Moscow had done so because Russian speakers on the peninsula had faced “real threats”.

* Associated Press with additional reporting by Agence France-Presse