Sikorski: we are monitoring the situation in Ukraine, PAP
Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski assured on Tuesday evening that Poland’s authorities, including the Foreign Ministry, were continuously monitoring the situation in Ukraine, while the minister himself kept in touch with politicians both in Kyiv and in the European Union.
“We are in regular contact with the Ukrainian foreign ministry, the high representative (Catherine Ashton), and several of our foreign minister friends; decisions will be taken after analysing the developments, keeping a cool head,” Sikorski told TVN24.
In his view the outside world has a very limited impact once a country’s government has decided to use violence. “But this will not remain without consequences,” he noted. He emphasized that the EU will take steps depending on further decisions by the Ukrainian authorities, and the results of such decisions.
Poland’s top diplomat said that as in Syria or Cuba, the reaction to the situation in Ukraine can only be political. Sikorski pointed to the possibility of EU sanctions. “From the kind used against Belarus, which have had a limited impact, to the kind imposed on Cuba or Iran, which have proved quite effective,” he added.
The minister went on to say that the situation in Ukraine resembled the suppression of rallies in Poland in the 1980s. He said it was sad that violent clashes were taking place in a country that held the OSCE chairmanship and is a member of the Council of Europe. The minister noted that Ukraine had recently seen “some positive developments, a gesture of both the authorities and the opposition,” which was the Ukrainian President’s declaration of willingness to open talks.
“In a political sense, it is an unforgivably lost chance,” said the chief of Polish diplomacy. He underlined that Kyiv had witnessed “a situation that’s typical for this region: you invite opposition for talks, and simultaneously clamp down on them.”
Asked whether President Bronisław Komorowski should undertake a diplomatic initiative to end the bloodshed, Sikorski replied: “It is possible that talks between the Polish and Ukrainian Presidents are being arranged even as we speak.”
Sikorski was also asked to comment on Tuesday’s remarks by Law and Justice leader Jarosław Kaczyński, who called on the Polish government to take prompt actions to calm down the situation in Kyiv, and said that Poland and Europe should not procrastinate given that the situation in Ukraine was getting dramatically worse. “Poland has never procrastinated,” asserted the MFA chief. He recalled that last week Poland “was given a green light by all EU member states to officially state that the negotiated association agreement will not be Ukraine’s final step towards the EU.”
On Tuesday evening, Ukraine’s interior ministry forces launched an attack in Kyiv’s Independence Square (Maidan), where a tent camp had been set up by government opponents. Earlier, clashes broke out in the city; at least 11 people have died. (PAP)
http://www.msz.gov.pl/en/
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