Press. voanews.com.
NATO’s
chief urged allies to maintain sanctions against Russia as foreign ministers
wrapped up a two-day meeting in Brussels. The meeting also focused on European
security and the upcoming Trump administration in the United States.
NATO
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said cease-fire violations have increased
massively in eastern Ukraine, with hundreds of explosions daily from military
equipment banned under the Minsk cease-fire accord.
“The
international community must keep pressuring Russia to respect its
obligations," said Stoltenberg. "Especially while the security
situation in eastern Ukraine remains so serious, it is important that economic
sanctions be maintained.”
He said a
four-way meeting last week between Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany did not
make headway in shoring up the Minsk agreement. But he said diplomacy is the
only solution.
Secretary
of State John Kerry, who marked his last NATO meeting in Brussels, was holding
talks later Wednesday in Germany with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov,
but reports suggest the key focus is the conflict in Syria.
Russia
and Ukraine blame each other for lack of progress in resolving the eastern
Ukraine conflict that has killed nearly 10,000 people since April 2014.
Germany’s
foreign minister said he expects European sanctions against Russia to be
automatically rolled over next year when they are up for renewal. But it
remains unclear whether U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will take a softer
line on Russia. And in France, top presidential contender Francois Fillon
supports lifting the sanctions.
Alexandra
de Hoop Scheffer, who heads the Paris office of the German Marshall Fund of the
United States, said "everyone pretty much agrees within NATO that the
relationship with Russia is probably not leading to anything positive with
regards to Ukraine or Syria or Iraq."
"So
there is a problem," she added, "and we have to work with that
relationship, without cutting a deal with Russia or sacrificing Ukraine, to
find a solution in Syria or Iraq.”
The
Brussels meeting also discussed the security situation in Afghanistan and
Turkey, and finalized a pact for closer military ties between NATO and the
European Union. Secretary of State Kerry also sought to reassure allies that Washington’s
commitment to NATO would not change under a Trump administration.