Putin Urges Ukraine Referenda Delay
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Russian President Vladimir Putin asked pro-Kremlin separatists in southeastern Ukraine to postpone a series of disputed referendums planned for this weekend on declaring greater autonomy or outright independence from Kiev.
The move was announced after a Kremlin meeting with the current Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe chief, Didier Burkhalter, on Wednesday.
"We ask the representatives of the southeast to postpone the referendums planned for May 11 in order to create the conditions necessary for dialogue," Putin said after the meeting.
Pro-Russian activists said they would discuss Putin's call for postponement at a meeting of their assembly on Thursday.
"Tomorrow we will discuss that at the people's assembly," Denis Pushilin, a leader of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic, told Reuters.
"We have the utmost respect for President Putin. If he considers that necessary, we will of course discuss it."
Pro-Russian activists who have seized government buildings in eastern regions, such as Donetsk and Luhansk, had announced plans to stage polls on secession from Kiev following the protest-led ouster in February of a Kremlin-backed regime.
The votes have been denounced as illegal by both Kiev and its allies in Washington and the European Union.
Ethnic Russians who make up a large part of the population in the southeastern half of the ex-Soviet nation of 46 million had expressed fears about losing their language and other rights under a new pro-Western government.