German FM pushes for talks in Ukraine

Security group urges cease-fire and dialogue on autonomy in the east

Germany's foreign minister flew to Ukraine on Tuesday to help start talks between the Ukrainian government and its foes following the declaration of independence by two eastern regions.

Speaking at the Kiev Boryspil airport on Tuesday morning, Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Germany supports Ukraine's efforts to arrange for a dialogue between the central government and its opponents in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions that form the nation's industrial heartland.

Steinmeier voiced hope for the quick release of hostages and the freeing of captured government buildings, and stressed the importance of the presidential vote on May 25.

Steinmeier's trip is intended to begin implementing a road map for settling the crisis laid out by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a top trans-Atlantic security and rights group.

Russia, which is an OSCE member, has welcomed its efforts to mediate the crisis and spoken in support of the road map.

Pro-Russian insurgents, who have seized government buildings and clashed with government forces during the past month, held a referendum on Sunday, and claimed that about 90 percent of voters backed sovereignty. The two regions declared independence on Monday.

Ukraine's acting president called the vote a sham and Western governments said it violated international law.

Insurgents in Donetsk even asked to join Russia, but the Kremlin has shown no immediate intention to subsume eastern Ukraine following Russia's earlier annexation of Crimea.

Instead, Moscow pushed for talks between Ukraine's central government and eastern regions in negotiations on Ukraine's future - a cautious stance suggesting that Russia prefers a political rather than a military solution to the crisis.

Call for amnesty

The OSCE plan presented on Monday by Swiss President Didier Burkhalter calls on all sides to refrain from violence and urges an immediate amnesty and talks on decentralization and the status of the Russian language.

Russia has welcomed the initiative, which reflects some key demands of insurgents who have denounced the central government as a "fascist junta" bent on trampling on the rights of Russian speakers.

Burkhalter said the OSCE will set up rapid response teams to quickly investigate all acts of violence.

He said the road map envisages a quick launch of high-level round tables across the country that would bring together national lawmakers and representatives of the central government and the regions.

New poll mooted

Serhiy Taruta, Kiev-appointed governor of the Donetsk region, urged the Ukrainian parliament on Tuesday to authorize a referendum on June 15 that could help the regions gain more powers while remaining part of Ukraine.

While he dismissed the vote held by pro-Russian protesters on Sunday as an "opinion poll" lacking any legal consequences, Taruta said everyone, including those in the rebellious east, "should hear the answers to the questions that they are concerned about".

Taruta said key issues include possibly devolving more powers to local authorities, creating municipal police forces and a broader use of languages other than Ukrainian.

Ukraine's acting prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, pledged on Monday to hold a dialogue with Ukraine's east, but gave no specifics.

Russia's Foreign Ministry assailed on Tuesday what it called the Ukrainian authorities' reluctance to engage in a real dialogue with representatives of the southeast, saying that "it poses a serious obstacle on the path of de-escalation and establishing civil mutual understanding in Ukraine".