Ukraine Cites Russia Support for Peace Plan
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he has support for a peace plan from leaders who attended a summit meeting in Minsk, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Interfax news agency reported.
But there were no indications that would mean an immediate end to the fighting in eastern Ukraine between pro-Russia separatists and Ukrainian forces in which about 2,000 civilians and more than 700 Ukrainian troops have died.
Putin said separately he had an "overall positive assessment" of Tuesday's meetings, which included face-to-face talks with Poroshenko.
Putin told reporters there was no discussion of a ceasefire in Ukraine because Russia is not a party to the conflict. Moscow is accused by Kiev and the West of arming and supporting the rebels a charge the Kremlin denies.
In addition to their one-on-one meeting, Putin and Poroshenko also met in a general session meeting with the presidents of Kazakhstan and Belarus, and top European Union officials.
The meeting in the capital of Belarus came on a day when Ukraine claimed it had captured 10 Russian soldierswho had come over the border.
Putin did not directly address the allegation but appeared to tacitly recognise it and suggested that the soldiers simply had lost their way.
"Ukrainian soldiers have found themselves on our side, too," he told reporters.
The fighting in eastern Ukraine also had expanded to a new front. The area around the city of Novoazovsk, strategically positioned on roads linking Russia with Crimea, which Moscow annexed in March, has come under heavy artillery firing in the past two days.
Shortly after Poroshenko took office in June, he released a peace plan for the conflict that included an amnesty for those not accused of serious crimes and called for some decentralisation of power to the region.
"I can say that the logic of this peaceful plan was finally supported by all, without exclusion, of the heads of state," Interfax quoted him as saying.
Getting the rebels to accept the plan, however, would be a key issue, and Russia appears either unable or unwilling to exert influence on the separatists to end their fight.
Kiev and many Western countries have repeatedly accused Moscow of providing arms and expertise to the pro-Russian rebels to try to destabilise Ukraine, something Russia has denied.
