John Kerry presses Russia to open talks with Ukraine
Top US diplomat and foreign ministers of key players meet in Paris to discuss crisis
US Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday urged his Russian counterpart to open a dialogue with the new government in Kiev and attempt to find a way out of the crisis in Ukraine.
Just hours after saying Moscow could not order "self-defence" forces in Crimea back to their bases, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held the first face-to-face talks with the US since a pro-Moscow Ukraine government was ousted, prompting the de facto takeover.
US officials said Kerry had a brief discussion with Lavrov on the sidelines of an international meeting in Paris on Lebanon.
"The secretary urged direct talks between Russia and Ukraine," one official said.
We will do everything not to allow any bloodshed
Lavrov and Kerry also briefly met the German, British and French foreign ministers and France's President Francois Hollande. But hopes of engineering direct Russia-Ukraine talks hung in the balance amid confusion over whether Ukraine's acting foreign minister, Andriy Deshchytsia, had left Paris.