BERLIN - German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the European Union should keep the sanctions against Russia because of what she called Moscow’s failure to honor its obligations under a peace deal on the Ukraine crisis.
Merkel said she was working with French President Francois Hollande “with all one’s strength” to urge Ukraine and Russia to implement the Minsk peace agreement, which introduced a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine in 2014..
“I would like to be the first to lift the sanctions against Russia,” Merkel said on Thursday. “Unfortunately we haven’t seen a fulfillment of the Minsk accord so far, but we are working with all our strength so that we come back to a relationship with Russia, which doesn’t need sanctions.”
She said the Minsk agreement “remains the yardstick for the future of the sanctions.”
The United States and the EU imposed a series of sanctions on Russia in the summer of 2014 for allegations that Moscow is arming and supporting pro-Russian forces fighting in eastern Ukraine.
They keep accusing Moscow of destabilizing Ukraine since Crimea decided to rejoin Russia in a referendum in March 2014.
Moscow, however, has strongly dismissed the accusations and rejects having a hand in the crisis gripping the country.
The EU, however, extended in June the energy, financial and defense sanctions on Moscow until the end of January next year.
Some members of the union have criticized the rollover of the sanctions as the bloc itself has been suffering from Russia’s retaliatory measures, which ban imports of food products from certain EU states.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who blames the West for the bloodshed in Ukraine, imposed tit-for-tat sanctions against the EU.
The conflict has so far claimed the lives of more than 9,500 people and left 21,000 others injured, according to the United Nations. (Press TV)