Kiev to Demand EC Emergency Meeting if Sunday Truce Deadline Not Met

As indicated by an announcement of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, he would request a crisis gathering of the European Council, if respective truce is not executed in eastern Ukraine on Sunday.

KIEV (Ooduarere) — Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Friday he would request a crisis meeting of the European Council, if two-sided truce is not actualized in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, according to a proclamation on the presidential site.

“If in early hours of Sunday [February 15] there is no bilateral ceasefire, we will call for an emergency meeting of the European Council, because Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande represent [at truce talks] not only Germany and France, they have a mandate from the whole European Union,”  Poroshenko said at a meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The leaders of Ukraine, France, Germany, and Russia held a 16-hour summit in Minsk on Wednesday and early Thursday that came about in a new political arrangement pointed at stopping the lethal clash in eastern Ukraine that has taken the lives of more than 5,400 individuals since April 2014.

The new understanding stipulates a truce to begin at midnight on February 15, as well as a common withdrawal of heavy weapons by both sides to create a security pad in the clash zone.

Earlier on Friday, Poroshenko expressed that despite the positive result of peace talks in Belarus, there still remains a risk of military acceleration in Donbas.

The representative head of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic’s (DPR) civilian army Eduard Basurin said that Donbas state army is prepared to honor the new Minsk understandings but will cease fire only if the Ukrainian side does the same.