Ukrainian Impasse Can be Resolved Before End of Obama’s Term

The Ukrainian conflict can be resolved before the end of the US President Barack Obama’s term, US National Security Adviser Susan Rice said.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The peace will be possible only if both sides of the conflict "have enough political will": 

"This is an area where we believe that with sufficient will, particularly on the side of the Russians but to some extent obviously on the Ukrainian side as well, we have the wherewithal to resolve the issue and implement Minsk [agreements] in a time that remains," Rice told The Washington Post in an interview on Thursday, referring to the end of Obama's term expiring in January 2017.

She reaffirmed that the United States is regarding the Minsk agreements as means of resolving the Ukrainian conflict.

"In our estimation it [the Minsk deal] is a viable basis – if the parties were willing to implement it – for solving the conflict in eastern Ukraine," Rice added.

Kiev launched a military operation in the Ukraine's southeast in April 2014, after local residents refused to recognize the coup in Kiev that toppled ex-President Viktor Yanukovich.

The Minsk deal reached by the conflicting sides stipulates a full ceasefire, weapons withdrawal from the line of contact in eastern Ukraine, an all-for-all prisoner exchange and constitutional reforms, which would give a special status to the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics in the country’s southeast.