HANOI, April 16. /ITAR-TASS/. Meeting over Ukraine in Geneva remains on the agenda, but any use of force against the protesters must be stopped, Russia's Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov stated after talks with his Vietnamese counterpart Phạm Bình Minh on Wednesday.

“This meeting remains on the agenda,” Lavrov stressed. “We hope that efforts made today, in particular, by the Russian leadership, would be effective, and any applying of force against protesters would be stopped.”

According to Russia’s foreign minister, Russia will be pressing for Kiev leaders' respecting the demands by residents of Ukraine's southeast rather than using the army, which is banned by Ukrainian legislation. “In recent days, President Putin held detailed phone conversations with several foreign leaders, including US president and German chancellor, and in concrete terms explained the unacceptability of attempts of people, who unconstitutionally seized power in Kiev, to apply force against protesters, regarding the methods of ruling a state,” he said. “We will be pressing for Kiev leaders' respecting the demands by residents of Ukraine's southeast, by Ukrainian citizens, who live in the south-east, and immediately entering into negotiations in order to defuse tension, and not trying to whip it up by using military forces and, moreover, the army, which is directly banned by Ukrainian legislation.”

“Ukrainians should reach accords between themselves,” Lavrov believes, “since the background of the crisis is in the deep crisis of Ukrainian statehood, and it is impossible to overcome this crisis without having started a dialogue with an equal participation of all political forces and regions.”

All those who regard themselves as Ukraine's friends should make the current authorities to shift from words to deeds and initiate a true comprehensive constitutional process — the process of a constitutional reform, which would allow all regions ensuring their rights in the Ukrainian state, Sergei Lavrov stressed.