{"id":28628,"date":"2016-09-15T03:44:32","date_gmt":"2016-09-15T03:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/ukraine-russia-backs-7-day-unilateral-ceasefire\/"},"modified":"2016-09-15T03:44:28","modified_gmt":"2016-09-15T03:44:28","slug":"ukraine-russia-backs-7-day-unilateral-ceasefire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/ukraine-russia-backs-7-day-unilateral-ceasefire\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine: Russia backs 7-day unilateral ceasefire plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Visiting Kiev, foreign ministers of Germany and France announce Russia’s commitment on behalf of separatist leaders.}<\/p>\n

Russia has accepted a unilateral seven-day ceasefire in Ukraine on behalf of the separatist leaders that it has been backing for the past two years.<\/p>\n

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s foreign minister, made the announcement on Wednesday in Kiev where he has been holding talks with the Ukrainian president.<\/p>\n

“Today we came here with the news that with a commitment from Moscow, which reached us yesterday, starting tonight there will be a ceasefire on the part of the separatists, to start with for seven days, beginning at midnight,” he said.<\/p>\n

Visiting Kiev with his German counterpart,Jean-Marc Ayrault, France’s foreign minister, said an attempt to revive a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine from midnight could set the scene for agreement next week on further peace moves.<\/p>\n

Ayrault said he also expected both sides to sign an agreement next week to withdraw their troops from the lines of conflict in three hotspots.<\/p>\n

“In the next week we see an opportunity for a new dynamic in the conflict,” Ayrault said.<\/p>\n

A ceasefire was launched to coincide with the start of the school year on September 1.<\/p>\n

It failed to stop all fighting.<\/p>\n

“We are again at a crossroads,” Steinmeier announced on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

“We see a small sliver of hope in the back-to-school ceasefire … but it is not enough.”<\/p>\n

If the ceasefire holds and the agreement is signed as expected, the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia could meet in New York next week on the sidelines of a meeting of the UN General Assembly.<\/p>\n

That could prepare the way for a meeting of the leaders of the four “Normandy format” countries for the first time since October 2015.<\/p>\n

The “Normandy format” is a set-up approved in France during the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landing in 2014.<\/p>\n

“The presence of Jean-Marc and Frank-Walter here in Kiev is evidence that the Normandy format works, that we must together force Russia to implement the Minsk agreements,” Pavlo Klimkin, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said.<\/p>\n

France and Germany helped broker the 18-month-old Minsk peace deal. Many of its key points, such as holding regional elections and returning control of Ukraine’s border with Russia to Kiev, have long been stalled.<\/p>\n

“We understand that to implement the Minsk agreements, to force Russia to implement them, we need a clear idea of the sequence of steps and guarantees of their implementation from Russia,” he said.<\/p>\n

Russia denies accusations by Ukraine and NATO that it helps the separatists with troops and arms in a rebellion in which over 9,500 people have been killed since spring 2014.<\/p>\n

Ayrault and Steinmeier emphasised their support for Ukraine and their rejection of Russia’s annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine in 2014.<\/p>\n

Steinmeier said that as the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. did not recognise the annexation, it would not send observers to Russian parliamentary elections planned in Crimea on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Making his own separate trip to Kiev, Boris Johnson, the UK foreign secretary, said on Wednesday it was crucial for the West to maintain sanctions against Russia.<\/p>\n

“Clearly it’s up to the Russians primarily to make progress on the security side,” he said.<\/p>\n

“But it’s up to all sides I think in this conversation to make progress together.”<\/p>\n

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{Visiting Kiev, foreign ministers of Germany and France announce Russia’s commitment on behalf of separatist leaders.} Russia has accepted a unilateral seven-day ceasefire in Ukraine on behalf of the separatist leaders that it has been backing for the past two years. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s foreign minister, made the announcement on Wednesday in Kiev where he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-28628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28628\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28628"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=28628"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=28628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}