Kerry changes course to hold talks on Ukraine
PARIS — After a week of travel in the Mideast, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry changed course and arrived in Paris Saturday for talks with his Russian counterpart on the Ukraine crisis.
Halfway home from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Kerry landed in Shannon, Ireland, for a refuelling stop, when he decided to turn his plane around and headed to Paris. Kerry will meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the Russian ambassador’s residence tonight.
Kerry spoke to Lavrov on the flight to Shannon after U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed in a call on Friday to have their foreign ministers meet to discuss a possible diplomatic resolution to the Ukraine situation.
While in Paris, Kerry may also meet separately with the French foreign minister Laurent Fabius.
During Friday’s hourlong call, Obama urged Putin to withdraw his troops from the border with Ukraine. The Russian leader, who initiated the call, asserted that Ukraine’s government was allowing extremists to intimidate civilians with impunity, something Ukraine insists has not happened.
The White House and the Kremlin offered starkly different summaries of the call, which occurred while Obama was travelling in Saudi Arabia. The contrasting interpretations under- scored the chasm between how Moscow and Washington perceive the escalating international standoff sparked by Russia’s annexation of Crimea away from Ukraine.
White House officials described the call as “frank and direct” and said Obama had urged Putin to offer a written response to a diplomatic resolution to the Ukraine crisis that the U.S. has presented. He urged Moscow to scale back its troop build-up on the border with Ukraine, which has prompted concerns in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and Washington about a possible Russian invasion in eastern Ukraine.
The Kremlin said Putin had drawn Obama’s attention to a “rampage of extremists” in Ukraine and suggested “possible steps by the international community to help stabilize the situation” in Ukraine.
Kerry had already been due to return to Europe on Tuesday for a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting.
Kerry had been in Riyadh, as well as Rome and The Hague, Obama this week but was travelling on his own plane.
In Kyiv, former world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, considered a strong contender to become Ukraine’s next leader, upended the country’s presidential race Saturday by announcing he will throw his support instead behind a billionaire candy maker.
Klitschko told his UDAR party that he plans to run for mayor of Kyiv, paving the way for current presidential favourite, businessman Petro Poroshenko, in the May 25 vote.
The move is likely to ensure that both men cement powerful positions in Ukraine’s new government and block the chances of a full return to power by former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
Both Klitschko and Poroshenko played prominent roles in the monthslong protest movement that led to the toppling of President Viktor Yanukovych in February.