MOSCOW, April 12, /ITAR-TASS/. If Kiev uses force in the southeast of Ukraine, a four-party meeting on the resolution of the Ukrainian crisis will be foiled, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry by telephone on Saturday, April 12.
Lavrov warned Kerry that “if Kiev’s threats to use force against people driven to despair in the southeast are carried out, prospects for further cooperation on the Ukrainian issue, including a planned four-party meeting in Geneva, will be foiled,” he said.
“The secretary of state voiced concern over protests in the south-eastern regions of Ukraine, stating that this is a result of ‘incitement’ and nearly direct interference by Russia. However he could not give any concrete facts and only repeated that Russia must remove its people from the southeast,” the Foreign Ministry said.
Lavrov drew Kerry’s attention one more time to the fact that “the acute political crisis in Ukraine in general and in its south-eastern regions in particular was caused by the present Kiev authorities’ failure to take into account the legitimate needs and interests of the Russian and Russian-speaking population,” the ministry said.
“The leadership in Kiev is showing its inability to assume responsibility for the fate of the country and to effectively engage all political forces and regions in an inclusive process of drafting a new constitution,” the ministry said.
The Russian minister also said that Russia was prepared to consider information about “Russian agents” in the southeast of Ukraine.
He recalled similar complaints from acting Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrei Deshchitsa. “If the American side has concrete information to this effect, we are ready to consider it,” Lavrov said.