Ukraine needs western arms to achieve peace, says foreign minister

  21 February 2015    Read: 822
Ukraine needs western arms to achieve peace, says foreign minister
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin has once again urged the West for arms supplies to Ukraine, saying Kiev needs them to achieve peace.
"Our appeal for supplies of modern defense weapons to Ukraine stays in place," the foreign minister told the German Bild daily. "We need them for peace, not for war," Klimkin said.

He said Kiev needed elements of anti-tank defense system, transport means and radio transmitters.

The top diplomat also spoke in favour of a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine, where Germany could also take part.

"I believe Germany could take on more responsibility in the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis," he said, adding that the Minsk agreements remained "the only path to peace".

On February 12 the Belarussian capital Minsk hosted hours-long overnight talks by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as well as a meeting of the Contact Group for Ukraine.

The meetings produced a package of measures to implement the Minsk Accords, such as a ceasefire in certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions starting from February 15, the pullback of heavy armaments and measures for a long-term political settlement of the situation in Ukraine.

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