EN - Joint press point with Federica Mogherini: opening remarks by John Kerry, US Secretary of State - 21.01.2015 - Washington DC. #JohnKerry at 01:35: Today we reviewed the alarming situation in Ukraine where we are continuing to press Russia to live by the Minsk Agreement, 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 – The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe 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. © Frédérick Moulin 2015 - EU2015 - EC -All rights reserved. Text/transcript: © Frédérick Moulin 2015 - All rights reserved.
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 11:34:27 +0000