NEW YORK (AP) – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says he wants Monday’s planned meeting between President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin to lead to better implementation of an accord aimed at halting war in eastern Ukraine.
Poroshenko, in New York to attend the annual U.N. General Assembly, told The Associated Press after a dinner reception on Sunday night that talks between the U.S. and Russian president might produce “a firmer incentive” for Moscow to comply with international agreements agreed earlier this year and last year in Minsk, Belarus, calling for a cease-fire and weapon pullbacks by all sides.
Putin and Obama are to meet on the margins of the United Nations gathering Monday. It will be their first face-to-face encounter in nearly a year amid deteriorating relations between Russia and the U.S.
Poroshenko stressed that Ukraine and its U.S. and European allies need to be steadfast with Russia to make sure it lives up to the terms of the agreement to resolve the differences in eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists with support from Moscow have seized territory in the Donbass region and battled government forces. Russia earlier seized Ukraine’s Crimea region and declared it part of Russia.
The Ukrainian leader said he expects Ukraine, the United States and the European Union to coordinate “a firm incentive for Putin to comply with the Minsk agreements.”