EN - Joint press point with Federica Mogherini: opening remarks by John Kerry, US Secretary of State: Ukraine and #Russia, countering violent #extremism and #terrornetworks, fight against #ClimateChange , Libya, #TTIP, Israeli-Palestinian dispute, the future of Bosnia - 21.01 - Washington DC. #JohnKerry: I am very very pleased to welcome my friend Federica here, I got to know her and meet her brief stand as the Foreign Minister of Italy, and know elevated to the position of the High Representative, she is working with us on almost every single issue that we are engaged in in terms of foreign policy and we are very very appreciative for the significant cooperative relationship that we have. (...) Today we reviewed the alarming situation in Ukraine where we are continuing to press Russia to live by the Minsk Agreements, which they signed onto, which they negotiated, which they said they would keep, and which is critical to our ability to be able to restore the full sovereignty, and the calm, and the stability necessary for a transformation. We also call on all sides to end the fighting and to implement the Minsk Agreement. We are particularly concerned by signs that the Russian-backed separatists are attacking a full scale initiative against the city of Debaltseve (Дебальцеве) in an attempt to obviously gain control of a very significant rail juncture, and that is in blatant violation of the Minsk Agreement, the Sept. 19 Minsk Agreement ceasefire. It is also obviously, because theres been about a 500-square-mile extension of the so-called line of control, an effort to try to broaden the amount of territory that is being held from the time that they signed an agreement and agreed to keep the line of control. So this is a very blatant land grab ; and it is in direct contravention to the Minsk Agreements which they signed up to. And that is why the European Community decided to hold the line with respect to the sanctions and continue to send a message that we will not stand for this kind of violation of the sovereign integrity of a nation. The OSCE reported yesterday that at least 30 Grad rockets hit Debaltseve, and it killed 3 civilians and wounded 12 people and the OSCE observers said clearly they were personally able to observe the direction from which those rockets came, specifically from the separatist-controlled town of Horlivka (Горлівка). So, I want to make it very clear that the US continues to strongly support Ukraines territorial integrity. We condemn all actions that are aimed at undermining that sovereignty or at trying to gain one advantage or another after the ceasefire for the purpose of negotiating down the road. We will also do all that we can, and we talked about this today, to help Ukraine with respect to the serious economic challenge that it faces. Now obviously, the issue of countering violent extremism was also very much on our agenda. Terrorists want to drive us apart ; but in fact their actions have had the opposite effect: they are bringing us together. And they are bringing us together with greater determination, with greater resolve to be able to get the job done, and that is precisely what we are going to talk about tomorrow in London with all of our partners (see video Counter-ISIL Coalition Small Group Meeting in London youtu.be/kxee3aI2fw8). (...) We also talked about the need to defeat terror networks such as Daesh or Al-Qaeda, and to do so without undermining the freedoms that violent extremists find so threatening. (...) This year will be an important one for international action on climate change, and I am very pleased that the EU and the US are increasingly aligned in pushing for meaningful commitments by States in advance of the December Summit in Paris. We talked about this at great length when we met in Brussels for the US-EU Energy Summit, which we held a number of weeks ago, at which time we talked about our commitment to creating energy independence, and to dealing with the problem of the sole source of supply from Russia that is passed through Ukraine, and we made some very strong plans, which the High Representative assures me are being acted on in Europe today in order to create that independence. (...) There are of course a lot of other issues that we touched on in the course of our conversation (...) (mentioning Libya, TTIP, Israeli-Palestinian dispute, the future of Bosnia, the fact that the US and the EU work together and united on all issues) So with that, its my particular pleasure to introduce our good partner and my good friend Federic Mogherini. © Frédérick Moulin 2015 - EU2015 - EC -All rights reserved. Text/transcript: © Frédérick Moulin 2015 - All rights reserved.
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 10:57:38 +0000
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