DPA/Berlin/Moscow
German Chancellor Angela Merkel will travel to Ukraine on Saturday for crisis talks on the stand-off between the West and Russia on ending the armed conflict between separatist rebels and government forces in the east of the country.
“At the centre of the talks will be the current situation in Ukraine and the relationship with Russia,” Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said yesterday.
The visit, which will also include a meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, will be used to discuss “concrete ways to support Ukraine in the current crisis”, Seibert said.
The announcement comes as the death toll from the conflict continues to rise.
Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council said that at least 17 people were killed in an attack on Monday on a convoy carrying refugees near the eastern city of Luhansk.
The search for more victims had to be suspended because of fighting, Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko said, according to an official transcript.
Pro-Russian separatists have denied accusations that they attacked the convoy. The incident has not been independently confirmed.
A Ukrainian military official said that the refugees were driving in army vehicles displaying white flags.
Merkel has been spearheading the Western drive for a diplomatic solution to the crisis, which has strained ties with Russia.
Russia introduced import bans on food products from the European Union, the US and other countries that have imposed tough sanctions for the Kremlin’s alleged support for the separatists in Ukraine.
In addition to talks with Poroshenko, Merkel will also meet Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk as well as city mayors.
Foreign ministers from Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France were due to decide whether to continue crisis talks that started with a meeting on Sunday in Berlin.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said talks on Ukraine were ongoing “at various levels”.
“This is a good thing,” he said in an interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda radio station.
Asked if Putin would meet with Poroshenko, Peskov said that such talks “will occur only after being well prepared”.
Merkel: spearheading the Western drive for a diplomatic solution.
