Kerry Says Ukraine President's Reform Offers Fall Short
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that measures pledged by Ukraine's embattled leader to address protesters' demands did not go far enough.
"The offers... have not yet reached an adequate level of reform," he told reporters after talks in Berlin with his German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
He said that President Viktor Yanukovych needed to go beyond an amnesty law for jailed pro-EU opposition activists and the repeal of anti-protest laws -- steps the president ratified Friday despite being on indefinite sick leave.
Kerry said if there were signs of real progress in including the opposition in power, the United States would then encourage the demonstrators to cooperate in the interest of "unity" and peace "because further violence and violence that gets out of control is not in anybody's interest."
Kerry was in Berlin on his way to an international security conference in the southern city of Munich where he will meet, among others, key leaders of the Ukrainian opposition for the first time.
Ukraine is facing its worst crisis since its 1991 independence.
Opposition supporters are digging in at their protest camp on Kiev's central square known as the Maidan despite a string of earlier concessions from the authorities, including Yanukovych's acceptance of his prime minister Mykola Azarov's resignation.
Source: Agence France Presse
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