Ukraine parleys
THE QUADRANGLE talk on the situation in Ukraine is another opportunity for diplomacy to click, and normalise the worsening equation in the crisis-torn country. The European Union, Russia, the United States and Ukraine are meeting next week to re-evaluate the security and sovereignty issues of Ukraine, especially after the massing of Russian troops on its eastern frontiers. Moreover, the unrest that has been unfolding on the mainland with pro-Kremlin activists seizing government offices and hoisting Russian flags is likely to generate some heated debate. Though the agenda for talks had not been spelt out, it is little known as to what extent Russia’s annexation of Crimea will be reviewed, and in what perspective it will be dealt with. This will be the biggest question of international jurisprudence to know whether Kiev and Moscow will be talking from a position of fait accompli or prefer to get down to the legal status of Crimea. The Nato and the United States have already put in preconditions saying no headway could be made until and unless President Vladimir Putin pulled back his forces from eastern Ukraine. The question of Crimea is still unaddressed as far as the West is concerned, and there is no move to interpret its annexation other than calling it illegal and against international law.
These issues that will consume much of the time as diplomats rub their shoulders. US Secretary of State John Kerry, his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsia and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who will be aided by their aides and emissaries, should make it a point to ensure that the crisis doesn’t graduate into another international conflagration and the ethnic fissures are repaired. This will help in addressing the concerns of Tartars and other lingual segments who are sceptical of the Russian muscle-flexing. Nonetheless, it is a good sign that the major opponents and stakeholders have agreed for a dialogue and the onus is on Moscow to make it result-oriented.
The transatlantic alliance on its part should also play it safe and desist from tapping Baltic States and other eastern European countries for a renewed military consortium, as it will only flare up anti-West sentiments in Russia. Putin, who is shrewdly using all the opportunities that come his way to expand his outreach across Russian borders, should not be provided with another excuse to make use of his chauvinism.
There is an opportunity in disaster to rescue the region from ethnic upheavals