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From Jon Hellevig, Moscow
Alexander Mercouris has given a blitz review of the Putin talks with Hollande & Merkel.
Drawing from that, I would say something very serious is going on. Hollande & Merkel are really trying this time, they are dead serious and scared shit for what might happen if...but as the 5 h talks evidence, Putin does not seem to be caving into the demands, but at the same time he is doing everything not to humilate the guests, cause this time they came with dead earnest pleas.
Putin is therefore trying to come up with something nice for them to take home. - What I am concerned of is what will these leaders do for the people suffering in Donbass, what to do to prevent daily nazi artillery sheltering of Donetsk and other places of Donbass. That is what counts. Cause when one person dies, then the world comes to an end.
TALKS
IN MOSCOW
Alexander Mercouris
Via Facebook
They
have apparently continued for 5 hours and are still not finished
though it seems some sort of document is being prepared for tomorrow.
Three
comments:
1.
If negotiations go on for 5 hours that does not suggest a smooth and
conflict free discussion.
2.
One of the most interesting things about the Moscow talks is that
they mainly happened without the presence of aides and officials i.e.
Putin, Hollande and Merkel were by themselves save for interpreters
and stenographers. Putin and Merkel are known to be masters of detail
and given his background as an enarque I presume Hollande also is.
However the German and French officials will be very unhappy about
this. The Russians less so because since the meeting is taking place
in the Kremlin they are listening in to the discussions via hidden
microphones.
One
wonders why this is happening? Even if the Russian officials are not
listening in Merkel and Hollande will assume they are. The fact that
Russian officials were not present is therefore less significant than
that German and French officials have been barred from the meeting by
their respective chiefs, suggesting that Merkel and Hollande do not
entirely trust them.
There
has been an extraordinary degree of secrecy about this whole episode
and it rather looks as if Merkel and Hollande were anxious to stop
leaks and to prevent information about the talks from getting out.
Presumably this is why their officials were barred from the meeting.
From whom one wonders do Merkel and Hollande want to keep details of
the meeting secret? From the media? From other members of their own
governments? From the Americans? What do they need to keep so secret?
The frustration and worry on the part of all these groups must be
intense.
3.The
fact that the British are excluded from the talks is going down very
badly with many people here in London. It has not escaped people's
notice that this is the first major negotiation to settle a big
crisis in Europe in which Britain is not involved since the one that
ended the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Of course it is largely the
fault of the inept diplomacy of Cameron, who has taken such an
extreme pro-Ukrainian position that Moscow simply doesn't see him as
someone worth talking to. Also one suspects Merkel and Hollande do
not trust Cameron not to leak the whole discussion to whomever they
want to keep it from. Having said that it is difficult to see this as
anything other than further evidence of Britain's decline into
complete irrelevance. I cannot imagine Thatcher being excluded in
this way. If the United Kingdom is indeed in the process of breaking
up (and as I suspected the Scottish referendum settled nothing with
polls indicating that the SNP may make an almost clean sweep of all
the seats in Scotland in the election in May) then the slide into
irrelevance still has a long way to go.
Putin, Hollande, Merkel talks on Ukraine ‘constructive’, possible document in progress – Kremlin
RT,
3
February, 2015
Talks
between Russia’s President Putin, France’s President Hollande,
and German Chancellor Merkel have been constructive and work is
underway on a possible joint document aimed at implementing the Minsk
agreements, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
“On
the basis of proposals made by the French President and German
Chancellor, there is currently ongoing joint work to prepare the text
of a possible joint document on the implementation of the Minsk
agreements – a document that would include proposals made by
Ukrainian President Poroshenko and proposals put forward today by
Russian President Putin,” Dmitry Peskov said after the talks
between the three leaders finished in Moscow on Friday.
He
explained that after the document is prepared it will be presented to
both sides in the conflict in Ukraine for approval. Peskov
characterized the talks as “constructive, informative and
substantive.”
The
preliminary results of the talks will be discussed in a telephone
call between the ‘Normandy Four’ – Russia, France, Germany, and
Ukraine – on Sunday, he said.
The
French government viewed the talks as having been “constructive and
meaningful,” RIA Novosti reported, citing French media sources in
the Hollande administration. Meanwhile, German sources said that the
document on Ukraine will include suggestions from each of the
'Normandy Four' leaders.
“Currently,
there is work underway on a possible joint document, which will allow
the Minsk agreements [on ceasefire in Ukraine] to be fulfilled,”
the French sources said.
This
was also confirmed by German government spokesman Steffen Seibert in
a statement.
Following
both the talks and a joint dinner, French President Francois Hollande
and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have traveled back to the
airport.
The
importance of the talks has been highlighted by the fact that the
details have been shrouded in secrecy. RT’s Maria Finoshina
reported from the Kremlin that the journalists were given a mere 30
seconds to take photographs of the three leaders, and none of them
uttered a single word to the press during the photo-shoot.
Hollande
and Merkel arrived in Moscow on Friday evening. They headed straight
to the Kremlin for talks on the Ukrainian crisis with President
Vladimir Putin behind closed doors in discussion which lasted for
nearly five hours.
The
Minsk Protocol – an agreement to stop the conflict in eastern
Ukraine – was signed in September by representatives of Kiev, the
self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, the Russian
envoy to Ukraine, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation
in Europe (OSCE) following talks in the Belarusian capital.
The
document outlined twelve points, urging a bilateral ceasefire and
calling for measures to resolve the conflict in Donbass. A follow-up
memorandum listed concrete steps to enforce a ceasefire, including a
pullback of heavy weaponry, the creation of a 30-kilometer buffer
zone, a ban on offensive operations and combat flights, as well as
the setting up of an OSCE watchdog mission.
The
ceasefire agreement was initially lauded as successful, with prisoner
swaps taking place and fighting reducing in intensity. However, in
January there was a rapid escalation in the conflict, with both the
Kiev government and the rebels blaming each other for starting an
offensive at Donetsk’s main airport, which was partly held by the
Ukrainian armed forces at the time. Kiev stepped up its military
operation and the shelling of Donbass cities after losing the
airport, and self-proclaimed officials responded with harsh rhetoric,
also pledging to fight back and attack.
Most
recently, a dramatic escalation of fighting turned the eastern city
of Debaltsevo, between Donetsk and Lugansk, into a warzone, with
civilians coming under intense shelling. Destroyed tanks and armored
vehicles littered the city’s streets. Local militia fighters said
that they had negotiated a humanitariancorridor for civilians in the
area, which was later confirmed by Kiev.
However,
the evacuation of Debaltsevo did not go smoothly from the very
outset. Russian journalists, including an RT crew, came under sniper
fire at a checkpoint near the city, with militia firing back.
According to RT’s Roman Kosarev, “bullets were flying two or
three meters” away from the group. Luckily, nobody was injured in
the shootout.
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