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US Secretary of State John Kerry denied yesterday that a split has emerged between Washington and Europe over how to handle Russia, after leading US senators sharply criticised Germany and other countries who oppose sending arms to the Ukraine military.“Let me assure everybody there’s no division, there’s no split – I hear people trying to create one,” Kerry told a security conference in Munich.
“We’re united, we’re working closely together, we all agree that this challenge will not end through military force. We’re united in our diplomacy.”
Meanwhile, Germany’s Angela Merkel said on Saturday that sending arms to help Ukraine fight pro-Russian separatists wouldn’t solve the crisis there, drawing sharp rebukes from US politicians who accused Berlin of turning its back on an ally in distress.
The heated exchanges at a security conference in Munich pointed to cracks in the transatlantic consensus on how to confront Russian President Vladimir Putin over a deepening conflict in eastern Ukraine that has killed more than 5,000.
Ukraine’s military said on Saturday that pro-Russian separatists had stepped up shelling of government forces and appeared to be amassing troops for new offensives on the key railway town of Debaltseve and the coastal city of Mariupol.
The rebel offensive has triggered a flurry of shuttle diplomacy, with Merkel and French President Francois Hollande jetting to Moscow on Friday to try to convince Putin to do a peace deal.
But European officials acknowledge that the Russian leader may have little incentive to negotiate now, preferring to sit back and watch as separatists seize more territory, undermining a ceasefire agreement clinched last September in the Belarus capital Minsk.
The German leader conceded in Munich, after returning home from Moscow in the dead of night, that it was uncertain whether a Franco-German peace plan presented to Kiev and Moscow this week would succeed.
But she flatly rejected the notion that sending weapons to Kiev, an idea being considered by US President Barack Obama, would help resolve the conflict. “I understand the debate but I believe that more weapons will not lead to the progress Ukraine needs. I really doubt that,” said the conservative German leader, who has led western efforts to try to resolve the crisis through negotiations and will travel to Washington on Sunday for talks with Obama.
US Vice President Joe Biden, speaking at the same conference, tried to play down differences with Europe, saying he and Obama agreed that no efforts should be spared to resolve the conflict peacefully.
But he made clear that Washington stood ready to provide Ukraine with the means to defend itself, saying: “Too many times President Putin has promised peace and delivered tanks, troops and weapons.”
Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula in March last year and evidence that it is supporting separatist forces in the east of the country, which the Kremlin denies, have driven Moscow’s relations with the West to a post-Cold War low.
The EU and United States have imposed a series of sanctions against Moscow that have contributed to a sharp downturn in the Russian economy.
Merkel and her allies in Europe want to continue to punish Russia by tightening the economic screws. Obama faces pressure from members of Congress to do more.- Reuters.
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