The emissaries of Washington and Moscow begin talks Monday in Geneva to try to defuse the Ukraine crisis.
Le Monde with AFP
The United States warned Russia Sunday, January 9 of a risk of “confrontation” before the start of talks under high voltage in Geneva to try to defuse the crisis that is played around Ukraine and, -delà, trying to reconcile irreconcilable visions appearance on European security.
A few hours earlier, Russia had refused any “concession” to the negotiations. “This is completely excluded, told the Russian news agencies Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. We are disappointed signals from Washington in recent days, but also in Brussels.”
US Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, said on CNN there was” a path of dialogue and diplomacy to try to resolve some of these differences and avoid confrontation “.
“The other way is that of confrontation and massive consequences for Russia if it renews its aggression in Ukraine. We are about to see which way President Putin is ready to borrow.”
A first Sunday evening chat
This diplomatic exchange high risk begins this week in Geneva by a face-to-face Deputy Foreign Ministers of the two rival powers, American Wendy R. Sherman and Mr. Ryabkov. A senior White House said that Russians and Americans “would likely have a first discussion Sunday evening” before the opening of discussions on Monday.
It will continue with a NATO-Russia meeting in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday with a meeting in Vienna of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), to include the Europeans, who fear being marginalized . “Europeans should not be absent from the negotiating table,” said Sunday the French Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clement Beaune. From Paris to Berlin via Brussels, calls have increased to a real place at the negotiating table the countries of the Old Continent, including the European Union, facing the Kremlin, which seems to favor the-tete Russian-American head. So far, Biden scalded his European allies by appearing to go it alone in Afghanistan or in its strategy to counter China.
The West and Kiev accuse the Russians have massed nearly 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border for a possible invasion, and threatened the Russian president “massive” and unprecedented sanctions if attacked new neighboring countries. These measures could cut up to Russia the workings of global finance or to prevent the inauguration of the Nord Stream 2, dear to the Kremlin. Thus they seek to show that they are more determined this time in 2014, when Moscow annexed the Ukrainian Crimea without the American-European alliance manages to make him back off.
” the risk of a new conflict is real “
President Putin, who met twice with his US counterpart since the beginning of this new crisis, warned that new sanctions would be a “colossal mistake” and threatened to turn for an answer ” military and technical “.
For the Kremlin, it is the West that causes the stationing Russian military on its doorstep or arming Ukrainian soldiers fighting pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass in the east of Ukraine. It therefore requires a great treatise excluding the entry of Ukraine into NATO and the withdrawal of US soldiers of the easternmost of the Atlantic Alliance countries.
Not only the Americans assure not be willing to reduce their workforce in Poland or the Baltic states, but they threaten the contrary strengthen if the Russians went on the offensive. “The risk of a new conflict is real,” warned Friday NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
In addition to the Ukrainian crisis, Washington hopes to use the talks back on track for US-Russian relations, the lowest since the end of the Cold War. And maybe get progress on other issues such as disarmament.