Merkel - Obama Meeting: Discussion of Ukrainian Crisis

Local Editor

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was to brief US President Barack Obama on the latest peace plan for Ukraine ahead of a four-way summit aimed at ending 10 months of bloodshed.

Foreign ministry officials from Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France were due to hold a preparatory meeting in Berlin after leaders agreed to push for the key meeting on a new peace deal Wednesday in Belarus' capital Minsk.

However, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that a "number of points" still needed to be hammered out before the meeting could take place.

Meanwhile, Merkel flew to Washington to discuss a European-brokered peace initiative with President Barack Obama in the latest leg of a frantic diplomatic push to stop the conflict escalating as the White House mulls supplying weapons to Kiev.
According to German officials, in a four-way telephone talk Putin, Merkel, Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko and French leader Francois Hollande floated the summit as the next step to finding a "comprehensive settlement" to end the conflict.

The Ukrainian government stated after the phone call that the four leaders expected their efforts to lead to "an immediate and unconditional bilateral ceasefire".

Furthermore, wrangling at the meeting in Berlin is expected to be intense as deputy foreign ministers lay the ground for the leaders' summit.

Olexiy Makeyev, a senior Ukrainian foreign ministry official heading to the meeting declared, "Our principal objective is to prepare the elements for a document that is acceptable to Ukraine".
In Washington, Merkel touched down for talks with Obama as the worsening violence confronts them with a choice between pursuing the risky peace talks or throwing more weapons into the war.

At home the White House was facing increasing calls to supply the outmatched Ukrainian army with more weapons to shore up its faltering defenses.
But Merkel and many European nations believed weapons could not overturn the military mismatch between Ukraine and the might of the Russian army, and would simply escalate the conflict.

Hence, Merkel declared in a security conference in Munich, "I think that the progress Ukraine needs won't be achieved with even more weapons".

US Secretary of State John Kerry has dismissed talk of a rift with Europe on the issue. He said in Munich, "Let me assure everybody, there is no division, there is no split".

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team