KIEV, April 18 /ITAR-TASS/. The Ukrainian side will “fulfill all provisions of agreements” it signed on Thursday in Geneva after talks that involved the foreign ministers of Russia, the United States, the European Union and Ukraine, Ukrainian parliament appointed prime minister Arseny Yatsenyuk said Thursday at an extraordinary cabinet meeting.
He urged protesters to unblock all administrative buildings and pledged the Kiev authorities will “fulfill the condition on an amnesty for those protesters who leave administrative buildings and lay down arms” except for those “who committed serious crimes, like murder”.
Yatsenyuk also said the government will consider cooperation with the International Monetary Fund at a closed meeting.
The Geneva statement adopted after Thursday’s meeting on Ukraine in particular envisions that all illegal armed formations should be disarmed in Ukraine, all administrative buildings unblocked and all protesters except for those who committed serious crimes pardoned.
Political and economic turmoil has embraced Ukraine after a coup rocked the country in February following months of anti-government protests, often violent, triggered by President Viktor Yanukovich’s decision to suspend the signing of an association agreement with the EU in November 2013 in order to study the deal more thoroughly.
Amid deadly riots that involved radicals in February 2014, new people were brought to power in Kiev. Yanukovich had to leave Ukraine citing security concerns the same month. Moscow does not recognize the new self-proclaimed Ukrainian authorities, who appear unable to restrain radicals and ultranationalists.
The crisis deepened when Crimea, where most residents are Russians, refused to recognize the legitimacy of the de facto Ukrainian leaders. Crimea reunified with Russia on March 18 after a referendum two days earlier in which it overwhelmingly voted to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation.
After the reunification, which Kiev does not recognize despite Russia’s repeated statements that the referendum in Crimea complied with the international law, pro-federalization protests against the new Ukrainian authorities erupted in Ukraine’s Russian-speaking southeastern territories.
Western-leaning interim Ukrainian president Alexander Turchinov, appointed by the Ukrainian parliament after February’s coup, on April 15 announced the start of an antiterrorism operation in the eastern Ukrainian Donetsk Region, which is seen as a crackdown on protests of federalization supporters.