Russia ready to cooperate with partners in resolving crisis in Ukraine – Russian Foreign Ministry
17 March 2014, 14:21 -- Moscow urges contact group to ensure Ukraine's non-bloc status fixed in UN Security Council resolution – Russian Foreign Ministry. 'As has been repeatedly explained by the Russian side, the current situation in Ukraine was not created by us but resulted from a deep crisis that gripped the Ukrainian state, polarized the Ukrainian society and aggravated the antagonistic differences between various parts of the country. Efforts by the international community should aim precisely at helping to overcome those differences,' the statement says.
'With this in mind and taking into account requests from the United States and European countries, we have prepared and submitted to our main partners in the United States, Europe and other regions our proposals on how external assistance should be organized to promote the steps the Ukrainians themselves should take to end the crisis. For that purpose, we suggested creating a contact group on support to Ukraine, made up so as to suit all the Ukrainian political forces,' the ministry said.
Moscow is ready to cooperate with foreign partners to form a multilateral mechanism without delay for resolving the crisis in Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Monday.
Moscow has urged that the right of Crimea to determine its own future in keeping with the results of the free expression of its people's will during the referendum of March 16th 2014, be respected, the Russian Foreign Ministry points out in a statement. Russia has suggested that the United States and the European Union set up a compact support group for Ukraine consisting of officials that would prove acceptable to all of Ukraine's political forces.
On February 22nd this year, Ukraine saw a change of power with signs of a state coup. The Supreme Rada removed President Victor Yanukovych from power, changed the constitution and set the next presidential election for May 25th . Yanukovcyh said later that he had been compelled to leave Ukraine due to a threat of bodily harm, so he remains the lawfully elected Head of State. Moscow feels the legitimacy of Supreme Rada decisions is questionable.
A number of regions in the east and south of Ukraine, as well as Crimea refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new authorities and took the decision on the likely holding of referendums to decide on their own future. Crimea and Sevastopol held this kind of referendum on Sunday, March 16th, with 96.77% of the voters casting their ballots in favour of joining the Russian Federation.
Russia urges Ukrainian parliament to prepare federative constitution
Moscow has called on the Verkhovna Rada, the parliament of Ukraine, to urgently convene a constitutional assembly representing all the Ukrainian regions to draft a new, federative constitution, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Monday.
Efforts are needed to encourage the Ukrainians 'to convene upon the Verkhovna Rada's decision a constitutional assembly representing all the Ukrainian regions to prepare a new, federative constitution,' it said.
Earlier, the foreign ministry unveiled Russia's proposal to create an international contact group on Ukraine.
The drafting of a new constitution should be one of the key aims of the contact group, the ministry said.
Legislative procedures on Crimea's unification with Russia to be completed as early as possible - lawmaker
All the necessary legislative procedures concerning the outcome of Sunday's referendum in Crimea will be completed at the earliest possible time, Russian State Duma Vice Speaker and United Russia General Council Secretary Sergei Neverov said on Monday.
'The results of the Crimean referendum have clearly indicated that the residents of Crimea see their future only as part of Russia. They voted for re-unification of the people who always lived together,' Neverov said in a statement posted on United Russia's website.
'The number of people who came to polling stations and supported Crimea's re-unification with Russia speaks for itself. It's a reply to all those who attempted, throughout the past weeks, to prevent the residents of Crimea from determining their own destiny, their own future and the future of their children,' the lawmaker said.
With three-quarters of the ballots counted, 95.7 percent voted to join Russia.
No doubt referendum in Crimea free, democratic - Russian senator
There is not a slightest doubt about the democratic and free nature of the expression of will by people in Crimea, who voted Sunday in a referendum on the status of that Autonomous Republic, Andrei Klimov, a deputy chairman of the foreign policy committee in the upper house of Russian parliament said on Sunday. He commented on a yet another warning from the US Administration that Washington would not recognize the results of the Crimean referendum, as the American officials found it to be illegitimate.
In fact, Sunday's referendum in Crimea had more legitimacy than presidential elections in the US, Andrei Klimov said, adding: 'Compared with Crimea, the US gets far more dubious results at its elections of the head of state, since it is not the politician who gets the majority of people's vote but, rather, the one enjoying support of the electors committees that emerges victorious from an election.'
'On the face of it, what we saw in Crimea was a direct expression of citizens' will - a system that the Americans might stand to benefit from,' he said.
Klimov believes that 'the people of any territory on the globe should have the right to determine its destiny independently.'
'Whatever the situation, the people of Crimea didn't give the right to choose destiny-making options for themselves either to Washington or to Brussels,' he said.
'A statement by White House press secretary the referendum in Crimea stands at variance with the Ukrainian Constitution and hence the US rejects it is all too obvious,' Klimov said. 'The thing is the White House is playing on the side of the new coalition in Kiev and the US always supports only the 'democracy' that serves its national interests.'
He also commented on the threats of sanctions against a number of Russian officials and state companies, allegedly involved in the situation in Ukraine, that Republican Senator John McCain, the chairman of Senate foreign policy committee Robert Menendez and Republican Senator Bob Corker had come up with.
'As long as I can remember - and I am a child from the Cold War generation - America has always promised nothing but sanctions to the Russians,' Klimov said. 'They've been playing the same tune for many long decades.'
'Two great nuclear powers, the US and Russia, should think in earnest about the future world structure,' he believes. 'All the rest is just lyrical fantasies.'
Sunday, Andrei Klimov was working in Geneva at the 130th assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union where the majority of Western countries except the US are taking part.
The Ukrainian delegation was getting ready to make public a draft statement on the referendum in Crimea on behalf of the assembly Monday. On the face of it, 'members of the Russian delegation are telling their counterparts on what is taking place in Crimea and in Ukraine in reality.'
'We are doing extensive and useful work to strengthen security and promote democracy worldwide,' Klimov said.
Voice of Russia, TASS, Gazeta.ru, RIA
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