UN Security Council to hold meeting on Ukraine
Iran Press TV
Sun Apr 13, 2014 8:50PM GMT
The United Nations Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on the crisis in Ukraine as protests continue in the Eastern European country.
Joy Ogwu, the Nigerian envoy whose country holds the rotating council presidency in April, released a statement on Sunday inviting "council members to informal consultations of the whole at 8:00 p.m. (0001 GMT Monday) this evening."
A council diplomat said on condition of anonymity that the meeting was set to be held "at Russia's request.'
Another diplomat said negotiations were under way regarding Ukraine's participation in the meeting.
The situation in eastern Ukraine is continuing to escalate with protesters taking control of the City Council in Kharkiv earlier in the day.
Meanwhile, new reports say that at least three people have been killed in clashes between security forces and protesters during what Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov calls an 'anti-terrorist operation" in the eastern town of Slavyansk.
Tensions between the Western powers and Moscow heightened after Crimea declared independence from Ukraine and formally applied to become part of the Russian Federation following a referendum on March 16, in which nearly 97 percent of voters in Crimea chose to rejoin Russia.
On March 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law documents that officially made the Black Sea peninsula part of the Russian territory despite condemnation from the West and the new Ukrainian government.
The move sparked angry reactions from the US and the European Union, both imposing punitive measures against Russia.
NT/MAM/AS
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