Ukrainian Crisis to Be Settled Only Trough Minsk Accords: Presidency Office

MOSCOW, December 30 (Sputnik), Svetlana Alexandrova – The Office of the Latvian EU presidency sees the full implementation of the Minsk agreement as the only route in resolving the Ukrainian crisis, the spokesperson for Latvia's EU presidency told Sputnik news agency on Tuesday.

“The only path to resolve the Ukrainian crisis is through the full implementation of the Minsk agreement,” Janis Berzins, the spokesperson for Permanent Representation of Latvia to the European Union, said.

Latvia is to take over the presidency from Italy on January 1, 2015. Together with the two other Baltic countries, Estonia and Lithuania, Latvia has called for a hardline approach towards Russia over the crisis in Ukraine, but the Latvian leadership insists that the country’s EU presidency will be unbiased.

"One thing we are not going to be is an 'anti-Russian' or 'pro-Russian' presidency, or a presidency that does not take into account the views of all member states," Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said earlier, as quoted by Agence France Press.

The Minsk agreements, reached in September, are seen as the most comprehensive attempt to settle the crisis in Ukraine. The framework deal was reached on 19 September at a Contact Group meeting that included representatives of Russia, the Kiev government, the self-proclaimed people's republics of Donetsk and Luhansk and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). The talks resulted in a ceasefire agreement between Kiev and east Ukrainian militias.

Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Minsk agreements were “very important” and urged the warring parties to abide by them.