Ukraine talks open without pro-Russian separatists
In Ukraine talks, finger-pointing and little sign of progress
(about 7 hours later)
KIEV, Ukraine — The first round of talks on Ukrainian national unity opened here Wednesday — without participation from pro-Russian separatists — a day after Ukrainian troops suffered their single heaviest loss of life against the separatists since the conflict in eastern Ukraine erupted last month.
KIEV, Ukraine — The first round of talks on Ukrainian national unity descended into grandstanding and accusations Wednesday, offering no sign of a diplomatic breakthrough in the region’s tensest standoff since the Cold War.
European diplomats are trying to pull rival factions together, a goal that now appears to have the backing of Moscow.
Although strongly backed by the West and ostensibly by Russia, the negotiations as they are currently cast are unlikely to have an immediate effect on the escalating violence in eastern Ukraine. During the talks, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk pressed an offer to give more powers to Ukraine’s regions. But he and other members of the interim government in Kiev have ruled out a seat at the negotiating table for the pro-Russian separatists who have captured administrative buildings and are confronting Ukrainian military forces in deadly skirmishes in the east.
In opening remarks, acting President Oleksandr Turchynov called for a dialogue but vowed that Ukrainian forces would continue an offensive to retake eastern cities and government buildings seized by the separatists.
“We will conduct a dialogue only with all those who do not shoot and do not kill citizens,” he said.
“Let’s have a dialogue; let’s discuss specific proposals,” Turchynov said, according to the Associated Press. “But those armed people who are trying to wage a war on their own country, those who are with arms in their hands trying to dictate their will, or rather the will of another country, we will use legal procedures against them, and they will face justice.”
Yet several politicians from the east who are distrustful of the new government came to Kiev, engaging with the interim leaders, two former presidents and other representatives of Ukraine’s religious and business communities. In a twist that seemed to take several speakers by surprise, the talks were broadcast live on the parliament’s television channel, lending an air of political theater to the proceedings.
Separatists, who declared “sovereignty” in two eastern Ukrainian regions this week, dismissed the talks in Kiev.
The talks, more than anything else, appeared to lay bare the gulf between those Ukrainians who support the interim government and those who do not. Pro-Kiev representatives often seemed to argue that the unrest and distrust throughout the east was strictly engineered by Russian operatives. Angry easterners, meanwhile, suggested that such comments only proved their point that officials in Kiev were out of touch with Russian speakers in the east who are deeply skeptical of the pro-Western uprising that ushered in the interim government in February.
“We haven’t received any offers to join a round table and dialogue,” said Denis Pushilin, an insurgent leader in Donetsk, AP reported. “If the authorities in Kiev want a dialogue, they must come here. If we go to Kiev, they will arrest us.”
During the talks, Inna Bohoslovska, a politician from the eastern city of Kharkiv, said some in her region cannot even understand Ukrainian-language news broadcasts or Ukrainian-dubbed movies. In what appeared to be a reference to the absence of separatists at the table, she said officials in Kiev should have invited “everyone” to the talks.
Ukraine’s interim government agreed to launch discussions after pressure from the European Union to back a peace plan brokered by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a group that includes Russia and the United States.
“Are you suggesting we should invite separatists, Russians here?” said former Ukrainian president Leonid Kravchuk, a supporter of the interim government.
But Kiev has insisted it will not negotiate with groups that have “blood on their hands.” The first round of talks is being chaired by Ukraine’s interim prime minister and includes national lawmakers, government figures and regional officials.
“They are also Ukrainians!” she countered.
In Moscow, meanwhile, officials appeared to soften their stance Wednesday in Russia’s ongoing confrontation with the United States and Europe over the future of Ukraine.
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that Ukraine was closer than ever to civil war and said any attempts by Ukraine’s new government to join NATO would be “an issue” for Moscow.
2 hours, the talks broke up with agreement in principle to hold another round in the coming days in Donetsk, a hot spot in the east where separatists have seized key buildings. But Kravchuk, citing security concerns, sounded dubious.
But Lavrov, in an interview with Bloomberg Television, also said Russia has “no intention” of sending troops into eastern Ukraine, despite fears in Europe and the West that it might invade following Ukraine’s presidential and mayoral elections scheduled for May 25.
“We don’t want to lose half the members of the roundtable on the way home,” he said.
Lavrov spoke at length about Russia’s deep historical and “psychological” ties to Ukraine, even saying that Russians “do not consider [themselves] foreigners” there. But he refused to respond directly to a question about whether Russia would annex more territories inside the country, calling the query “hypothetical.”
It remained doubtful, however, that the pro-Russian separatists would join the talks even if asked. Some separatist leaders in Slovyansk and Luhansk have refused to talk with the Kiev authorities, viewing them as illegitimate. Others said they have not been approached with an offer.
A top Russian legislator spoke out Wednesday in favor of the elections, even as questions remained over whether they would be allowed to proceed in swaths of eastern Ukraine where separatists called this week for annexation by Russia.
Nevertheless, the talks Wednesday amounted to the tenuous start of a process of negotiations being conducted under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a Vienna-based body that includes European powers as well as the United States, Russia and others. An OSCE peace plan calls for both sides to end the violence. In return for amnesty, the separatists would have to lay down their arms. Meanwhile, both sides would engage in negotiations on explosive topics, including decentralization of power and the legal status of the Russian language.
Duma Chairman Sergei Naryshkin told Russian television that voting in Ukraine would lack full legitimacy but that “not holding the elections is even a sadder situation,” the Interfax news agency reported.
On Wednesday, however, most of the issues were broached only with a broad brush, and some — such as an amnesty — not at all.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier flew to Ukraine Tuesday, spearheading an E.U. effort to jump-start negotiations between the warring parties and thus defuse the worst conflict between the West and Russia since the end of the Cold War. As he arrived, there was renewed fighting in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian rebels killed seven Ukrainian troops and wounded eight others in an ambush outside the city of Kramatorsk.
In Moscow, officials appeared to soften their stance, at least publicly. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned in an interview with Bloomberg Television that Ukraine was closer than ever to civil war and said that any attempt by its government to join NATO would be “an issue” for Moscow.
The West accuses Russia of igniting unrest in eastern Ukraine, a region that Western leaders fear could irrevocably slip out of the control of the Ukrainian government or descend further into civil war. Russia quickly annexed Ukraine’s autonomous Crimea region in March after a hastily called referendum showed residents favored a return to Russia. Similar referendums, branded illegal by the West and a farce by Kiev, were held in eastern Ukraine last weekend.
But he also said that Russia has “no intention” of sending troops into eastern Ukraine, despite Western fears that Moscow will invade after Ukraine’s presidential and mayoral elections, set for May 25.
At the heart of Wednesday’s talks is the future political makeup of Ukraine. Though some separatists have called for Russia annexation, others in the restive eastern regions are pressing for a federal system that would grant sweeping new powers to regional governors.
Lavrov spoke at length about Russia’s deep historical and “psychological” ties to Ukraine, even saying that Russians “do not consider [themselves] foreigners” there. But he refused to respond directly to a question about whether Russia would annex more Ukrainian territory, calling the query “hypothetical.” Russia annexed Crimea, an autonomous Ukrainian region, in March after a hastily arranged referendum there.
Members of the interim government in Kiev agree that some decentralization is needed but want to keep strong national authority in the capital.
At the same time, the situation in eastern Ukraine remained tense. Armed men entered the Novokramatorsky machinery plant in Kramatorsk and made off with a heavy construction vehicle, and the pro-Ukrainian head of a school was abducted and later released. Masked gunman also abducted the head of the district’s voting commission.
Statements by the foreign ministers in Kiev and Moscow suggested that the protagonists in the conflict were still talking past each other.
A day earlier, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said six soldiers were killed near Kramatorsk in one of the bloodiest clashes of the conflict. The ministry also said that a militant was killed and four others were wounded in the fighting. Local media had reported that a seventh Ukrainian soldier died of his wounds, but the reports have not been confirmed.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry accused the interim Ukrainian government of escalating the conflict and called on Kiev to withdraw its troops and cease its “punitive actions” as part of a diplomatic solution worked out with the OSCE.
In Kiev, analysts conceded that it was hard to imagine the separatists surrendering their arms without a seat at the negotiating table. Yet, resistance to offering one appeared strong.
In turn, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said Russia’s view of the OSCE’s “road map” was “far from reality, biased and one-sided,” and he accused Moscow of sponsoring the separatists in an effort to destabilize Ukraine. The spokesman said Kiev was following the OSCE plan by scheduling an “all-Ukrainian roundtable” Wednesday to discuss national unity.
“We’re ready to discuss questions, but for those who are armed and are trying to fight against their own country, to those who are holding guns and trying to dictate their own will, or, better said, the will of another country, for those we will have other methods,” Oleksandr Turchynov, the Ukrainian president, said at the start of the talks.
In Donetsk, the Kiev-appointed regional governor, Serhiy Taruta, said that the separatists’ self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” has no political or legal standing. But Taruta also told reporters that the concerns of the region’s people need to be addressed. He advocates a nationwide referendum June 15, at the same time as the second round of a presidential election, on a decentralization of political power that would give regions more say in their affairs, including a greater share of the taxes they levy and the power to make Russian the second official language.
Kunkle reported from Donetsk. Abigail Hauslohner in Moscow contributed to this report.
Taruta said he is in regular contact with the separatists, mainly over the issue of freeing hostages. But he said the makeup of the separatist negotiating team keeps changing because of internal power struggles, with no clear center of decision-making power.
“The problem is our opponents,” he said. “They don’t have one single representative who has the rights and responsibility to implement any agreements.”
Separatist leaders in Donetsk and Luhansk were adamant that the Ukrainian elections would not take place in their regions.
But Taruta said preparations were continuing, adding that police have been asked to provide adequate security for the process.
Polls have indicated that most residents of eastern Ukraine would prefer to remain part of the country.
Still, many are deeply unhappy with the Western-leaning government in Kiev. They consider it illegal and in league with ultranationalist groups, and some worry that the large population of Russian speakers in the east will be treated as second-class citizens. Their fears have been magnified by aggressive Russian propaganda.
Kunkle and Denyer reported from Donetsk, Ukraine. Abigail Hauslohner in Moscow and Daniela Deane in London contributed to this report.
