Moscow - The U.S. should employ its resources to persuade the Ukrainian authorities that their course is destructive, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested in a telephone conversation with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday.
“Lavrov emphasized that [Ukrainian] President Petro Poroshenko’s decision not to extend the armistice undermines the agreements reached earlier between the leaders of Russia, Germany, France, and Ukraine and starts a new cycle of bloodshed with consequences unpredictable for the Ukrainian state,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website.
“The Russian foreign policy chief contented that it is unacceptable to connive at Kyiv’s policy of using force to suppress protests in the southeastern regions, calling on the U.S. to employ its resources to persuade the Ukrainian authorities that their course is destructive,” it said.
“It was particularly noted that the countries concerned should apply joint efforts to ensure an immediate and durable ceasefire, the resolution of pressing humanitarian problems, and the start of real negotiations between the conflicting parties on settling the internal crisis in Ukraine,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Kerry said he shared these objectives but acknowledged that there were differences in approaches toward ways of attaining them, it said.
Lavrov and Kerry also discussed the course of the negotiations between the P5+1 group of world powers and Iran on reaching a comprehensive agreement eliminating concerns with respect to the Iranian nuclear program.
“Lavrov drew Kerry’s attention to the need to provide urgent medical aid to Russian citizen Konstantin Yaroshenko suffering a number of serious diseases, whom U.S. special services illegally smuggled from Liberia and sentenced to lengthy jail time,” it said.
