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Full Geneva Statement On Ukraine "De-escalation"
From the European Union:
Geneva Statement on Ukraine
Representatives of the European Union, the United States, Ukraine and the Russian Federation issued today the following statement:
"The Geneva meeting on the situation in Ukraine agreed on initial concrete steps to de?escalate tensions and restore security for all citizens.
All sides must refrain from any violence, intimidation or provocative actions. The participants strongly condemned and rejected all expressions of extremism, racism and religious intolerance, including anti?semitism.
All illegal armed groups must be disarmed; all illegally seized buildings must be returned to legitimate owners; all illegally occupied streets, squares and other public places in Ukrainian cities and towns must be vacated.
Amnesty will be granted to protestors and to those who have left buildings and other public places and surrendered weapons, with the exception of those found guilty of capital crimes.
It was agreed that the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission should play a leading role in assisting Ukrainian authorities and local communities in the immediate implementation of these deescalation measures wherever they are needed most, beginning in the coming days. The US, EU and Russia commit to support this mission, including by providing monitors.
The announced constitutional process will be inclusive, transparent and accountable. It will include the immediate establishment of a broad national dialogue, with outreach to all of Ukraine’s regions and political constituencies, and allow for the consideration of public comments and proposed amendments.
The participants underlined the importance of economic and financial stability in Ukraine and would be ready to discuss additional support as the above steps are implemented.”
And a take from the WSJ:
The U.S., Russia and European Union agreed to a framework of steps to de-escalate tensions in Ukraine, including demobilizing militias, vacating seized Ukrainian government buildings, and establishing a political reform program, U.S. and Russian officials said Thursday.
The agreement was reached during more than six hours of talks in Geneva and marked the first tangible step to defuse the political and security crisis in Ukraine since Russia annexed the Crimean region last month, said U.S. and Russian officials.
"The Geneva meeting on the situation in Ukraine agreed on initial concrete steps to de-escalate tensions and restore security for all citizens," the participants in the talks said in a joint-statement. "All sides must refrain from any violence, intimidation or provocative actions."
In other words, virtually a carbon copy replica of the diplomatic coup that was achieved... just before Russia annexed Crima.
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"Peace in our time".
It got so out of hand that it scares the shit out of everyone. MAD is not nuclear nowadays can come also from Syria style political meldowns.
I don't know if they can contain this meltdown,
Please allow me to summarize.
"Blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah. BLAH!
There, that ought to settle everything."
A cursary look at the gold price says that no one was scared. All is well.
Germany loves gold, but she cannot burn it, if you know what I mean, the spice must flow!
I expect Russian and Russian backed forces will continue to disarm people occupying buildings. Just like they did with those Ukrainian APC's earlier this week.
who knows what to expect.
Hopefully diplomacy doesn't make things worse though. Sometimes we're better off if we all understand that we all really do hate each other and talking only makes thing worse.
On the good side they didn't bring their guns to the negotiating table.
of course that's how the World War II ended.
This a call for peace. I would be surprised if EU, US or Russia would call for arming the population. Kiev now has somehow proceed with disarming. Russia doesn't have officials in Eastern Ukraine and little/nothing can do about disarming. Except for calling for peace.
Kiev will have as much success disarming Ukrainians as DC would if it tried disarming Americans. Not much.
The announced constitutional process will be inclusive, transparent and accountable.
LOL!!!
In other words: WE will dictate a Constitution to you. YOU must abide by the new Constitution; WE are free to ignore it at our whim.
Hmmm...strangely no mention of further costs...I swore I heard Kerry say costs a hundred times.
illegally seized buildings must be returned to legitimate owners
Does that mean the original Ukranian president comes back and the current gov is to abandon office?
Given ALL government property is stolen, this precedent could be fun!
Bullish!
More like Bullshit.
sure. putin has his own plans, doesn't give a f"§$§$ on USA, EU and others.
West has to reform a lot to face this mafia state called russian federation. There are a lot of "socialists" and "hipsters" and so forth thinking that the west is corrupted (and they may be true) but to just embrace "putin's values" because of that is extremely dangerous and stupid. Russia does not offer any alternative to our "corrupted system", because of their internal HUGE corruption. Just because Putin likes to pose as a strong guy, means nothing. Food for crowd.
They're all corrupt. You got MERICA/ZATO vs RU/OLIGS. Shit vs shit. I'm mad we always have to stick our dicks in everyone's biz. No, we had to help Nazis destabilize. It's a big shit sandwich and everyone's gonna take a bite.
Ukrainians still have a popularity rating in 90's.
Probably higher now actually.
Even if they cease to exist their popularity rating will probably remain in the 90's actually.
"Putin versus the Democrats. Democrats versus Putin." I think I'll avoid that one.
I do agree "Bankers and the market are really long everything now."
Phuckin' hoes.
I hate 'me myself.
Still..even vultures have a use in nature.
Corrupt West?!
Absurd.
mandea, -- how can I get in on some of that "corrupted" and "HUGE corruption? Any ideas?
no way, buddy. Just make sure you pay your taxes, wherever you are...:) That's your role.
I think Poland is happy they are not the focal point of this non-aggression pact.
Kerry Kf8
Putin gxh8=Q+
@fuh Querada if Putin has a white pawn on g7 to take in h8, then Kerry cannot play King f8 because this square is attacked by the pawn. you used the only wrong square.
http://www.freechess.org/
"All illegal armed groups must be disarmed"... that's the scary one right there. Please define "illegal armed group"... Coming soon to the USSA...
Left unanswered:
By whom?
All illigal armed groups must be disarmed? So I suppose they are talking about the current illigitamate governmnet.
Someone has set the ten year free--2.728
And Putin wins again, no mention of the Crimera returning to the Ukraine! You are a joke Kerry and Obama!!
"In other words, virtually a carbon copy replica of the diplomatic coup that was achieved... just before Russia annexed Crima."...
Precisely!!!
I'm sure the discussion that took place outside the publically stated objectives included many additional "codicils" that are quite different from the bonding that took place on February 21.
P.S.
Love the part about the "anti?semitism"... Was that a "blue helmet" participant to the meetings that put the question mark between the anti and the semite???
If that was done for affect I love the flourish.
The participants strongly condemned and rejected all expressions of extremism, racism and religious intolerance, including anti?semitism.
There are semites in The Ukraine? I would have never guessed.
And will there be Russian TV in Kiev?
After all they did say they reject all forms of racism.
Kerry is somehow making me pine away for Hitlary... no really!
This is a total fold by the U.S. and E.U. The military on the border was a free bargaining chip for Vlad; the unrest in the East was another asbolutely free bargaining chip. Now Vlad avoids the "third level of sanctions" by calling for de-escalation. Kerry advocates for a "transparent" constitutional reform in the Ukraine (read federalization), and EU is starting to negotiate with Vlad over Ukraine's gas bill: http://lenta.ru/news/2014/04/17/barroso/
Vlad: x+1; Barry: 0
And, btw, Crimea was so long ago that everyone has forgotten and accepted the fact that it is gone....
The clown posse at work, what could possible go wrong.
Time for propaganda:
"Ukraine and the grand chessboard
By Pepe Escobar
The US State Department, via spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki, said that reports of CIA Director John Brennan telling regime changers in Kiev to "conduct tactical operations" - or an "anti-terrorist" offensive - in eastern Ukraine are "completely false". This means Brennan did issue his marching orders. And by now the "anti-terrorist" campaign - with its nice little Dubya rhetorical touch - has degenerated into farce.
Now couple that with NATO secretary general, Danish retriever
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, yapping about the strengthening of military footprint along NATO's eastern border: "We will have more planes in the air, mores ships on the water and more readiness on the land."
Welcome to the Two Stooges doctrine of post-modern warfare.
Pay up or freeze to death
Ukraine is for all practical purposes broke. The Kremlin's consistent position for the past three months has been to encourage the European Union to find a solution to Ukraine's dire economic mess. Brussels did nothing. It was betting on regime change to the benefit of Germany's heavyweight puppet Vladimir Klitschko, aka Klitsch The Boxer.
Regime change did happen, but orchestrated by the Khaganate of Nulands - a neo-con cell of the State Department and its assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nulands. And now the presidential option is between - what else - two US puppets, choco-billionaire Petro Poroshenko and "Saint Yulia" Timoshenko, Ukraine's former prime minister, ex-convict and prospective president. The EU is left to pick up the (unpayable) bill. Enter the International Monetary Fund - via a nasty, upcoming "structural adjustment" that will send Ukrainians to a hellhole even grimmer than the one they are already familiar with.
Once again, for all the hysteria propagated by the US Ministry of Truth and its franchises across the Western corporate media, the Kremlin does not need to "invade" anything. If Gazprom does not get paid all it needs to do is to shut down the Ukrainian stretch of Pipelineistan. Kiev will then have no option but to use part of the gas supply destined for some EU countries so Ukrainians won't run out of fuel to keep themselves and the country's industries alive. And the EU - whose "energy policy" overall is already a joke - will find itself with yet another self-inflicted problem.
The EU will be mired in a perennial lose-lose situation if Brussels does not talk seriously with Moscow. There's only one explanation for the refusal: hardcore Washington pressure, mounted via the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Again, to counterpunch the current hysteria - the EU remains Gazprom's top client, with 61% of its overall exports. It's a complex relationship based on interdependence. The capitalization of Nord Stream, Blue Stream and the to-be-completed South Stream includes German, Dutch, French and Italian companies.
So yes, Gazprom does need the EU market. But up to a point, considering the mega-deal of Siberian gas delivery to China which most probably will be signed next month in Beijing when Russian President Vladimir Putin visits President Xi Jinping.
The crucial spanner in the works
Last month, while the tortuous Ukraine sideshow was in progress, President Xi was in Europe clinching deals and promoting yet another branch of the New Silk Road all the way to Germany.
In a sane, non-Hobbesian environment, a neutral Ukraine would only have to gain by positioning itself as a privileged crossroads between the EU and the proposed Eurasian Union - as well as becoming a key node of the Chinese New Silk Road offensive. Instead, the Kiev regime changers are betting on acceptance into the EU (it simply won't happen) and becoming a NATO forward base (the key Pentagon aim).
As for the possibility of a common market from Lisbon to Vladivostok - which both Moscow and Beijing are aiming at, and would be also a boon for the EU - the Ukraine disaster is a real spanner in the works.
And a spanner in the works that, crucially, suits only one player: the US government.
The Obama administration may - and "may" is the operative word here - have realized the US government has lost the battle to control Pipelineistan from Asia to Europe, despite all the efforts of the Dick Cheney regime. What energy experts call the Asian Energy Security Grid is progressively evolving - as well as its myriad links to Europe.
So what's left for the Obama administration is this spanner in the works - still trying to scotch the full economic integration of Eurasia.
The Obama administration is predictably obsessed with the EU's increasing dependency on Russian gas. Thus its grandiose plan to position US shale gas for the EU as an alternative to Gazprom. Even assuming this might happen, it would take at least a decade - with no guarantee of success. In fact, the real alternative would be Iranian gas - after a comprehensive nuclear deal and the end of Western sanctions (the whole package, not surprisingly, being sabotaged en masse by various Beltway factions.)
Just to start with, the US cannot export shale gas to countries with which it has not signed a free trade agreement. That's a "problem" which might be solved to a great extent by the secretly negotiated Trans-Atlantic Partnership between Washington and Brussels (see Breaking bad in southern NATOstan, Asia Times Online, April 15, 2014.)
In parallel, the Obama administration keeps applying instances of "divide and rule" to scare minor players, as in spinning to the max the specter of an evil, militaristic China to reinforce the still crawling "pivoting to Asia". The whole game harks back to what Dr Zbig Brzezinski conceptualized way back in his 1997 opus The Grand Chessboard - and fine-tuned for his disciple Obama: the US ruling over Eurasia.
Still the Kremlin won't be dragged into a military quagmire. It's fair to argue Putin has identified the Big Picture in the whole chessboard, which spells out an increasing Russia-China strategic partnership as crucial as an energy-manufacturing synergy with Europe; and most of all the titanic fear of US financial elites of the inevitable, ongoing process centered on the BRICS-conducted (and spreading to key Group of 20 members) drive to bypass the petrodollar.
Ultimately, this all spells out the progressive demise of the petrodollar in parallel to the ascent of a basket to currencies as the reserve currency in the international system. The BRICS are already at work on their alternative to the IMF and the World Bank, investing in a currency reserve pool and the BRICS development bank. While a tentative new world order slouches towards all points Global South to be born, Robocop NATO dreams of war." in
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-170414.html
oh well... just start WWIII and stop the sharades.
Odd! This quick agreement seems to be total capitulation on the Russians part.
When will the world learn never to negotiate with the US, It's death by a 1000 cuts, unless you NEED your sphincter penetrated without lube.
There is an alternative. http://youtu.be/3oKwg6W05MU