West Agrees With Need to Increase Pressure on Kiev - Lavrov

The Western countries are starting to agree with the need to increase the pressure on the Kiev authorities to implement the Minsk agreements on Ukrainian reconciliation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Lavrov called Kiev's unwillingness to communicate with the independence supporters the main issue in trying to reach consensus over the state of the Ukrainian government.

"Here our western partners, including [US State Secretary] John Kerry during his visit on May 12, including our German, French colleagues, are starting to agree with the need to increase the pressure on Kiev, so that not only Lugansk and Donetsk were ready to implement the Minsk agreements, but also so Kiev would be ready to do this," Lavrov told the RBC television channel.

Moscow Has No Moral Right to Force DPR, LPR to Do Anything

Moscow does not have the moral right to force the leadership of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics to do anything, but managed to convince them to abide by the Minsk agreements on Ukrainian reconciliation, Sergei Lavrov said.

"In my opinion, we don't even have the moral right to tell them to do anything, take any steps," Lavrov told RBC.

According to the top Russian diplomat, the important thing is that Moscow managed to convince the militias to look for solutions of their issues within the framework of the Ukrainian government after the Minsk agreements were reached.