Kerry to Visit Ukraine as US Mulls Arms Supplies
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - US Secretary of State John Kerry is set to arrive in Kiev for talks focusing on the possibility of arming Ukrainian forces in their fight against Russian-back separatist rebels.
Kerry's visit on Thursday comes a day after rocket salvoes hit a previously safe section of Ukraine's rebel stronghold of Donetsk, killing at least five people and damaging a hospital, schools and kindergartens, rebels said.
On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that he was confident that the US would agree to give weapons to Ukraine's army for its fight against the rebels, which has left more than 5,300 people dead since April.
President Barack Obama has opposed providing lethal assistance, but the surge in fighting has reportedly spurred the White House to review the policy, AP reported.
"I don't have the slightest doubt that the decision to supply Ukraine with weapons will be made by the United States as well as by other partners of ours, because we need to have the capability to defend ourselves, Poroshenko said on a visit to Kharkiv, a government-controlled city in eastern Ukraine.
Germany and France strongly oppose the idea, however. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman indicated the issue would be discussed up when Merkel meets Obama in Washington next week.
"We will not deliver any lethal weapons," Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Wednesday. "We are convinced that there can be no military solution to this already very bloody conflict."
A spokesman for Ban Ki-moon said in a statement that the UN Secretary-General condemned indiscriminate shelling and called on both sides in the conflict to immediately move their military positions away from densely populated civilian areas.
The fighting between Russia-backed separatists and government troops in eastern Ukraine escalated sharply in January, with more than 220 civilians killed in the past three weeks alone, according to the UN.
The rebel-run Donetsk News Agency, citing police, reported five people killed by shelling around the hospital in the city's western Tekstilshchik district on Wednesday.
City officials in Donetsk said the number of casualties could not immediately be established.
