US Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday held out the prospect of lifting Western sanctions against Russia within months if the Minsk peace accord to end the conflict in Ukraine is fully implemented. "With effort and with bona-fide legitimate intent to solve the problem on both sides, it is possible in these next months to find those Minsk agreements implemented," Kerry said in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
This would allow Russia "to get to a place where sanctions can be appropriately - because of the full implementation - removed," he said. The Minsk peace deal is a package of measures agreed by the leaders of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia in the Belarusian capital. The accords were finalised in early 2015 and effectively brought hostilities in Ukraine to an end after more than 9,000 people were killed in a civil war that broke out the previous April. However, a cease-fire agreed in September remains fragile.
Moscow has been hit by US and European sanctions over the conflict. The West and Kiev have accused Russia of fuelling the separatist insurgency in the east and sending regular troops across the border, claims that Moscow has repeatedly denied. In late December, the EU extended its sanctions by six months, arguing that the Minsk peace agreement has not been fully implemented. Last week senior US and Russian officials met to discuss the Ukraine crisis amid a fresh international drive to bolster the truce. The meeting came days after Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama discussed the Ukraine crisis by phone.
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