Kiev: US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said on Wednesday that Washington was not setting a specific deadline for Ukraine to conduct disputed elections in the war-scarred pro-Russian separatist east.
The comments from Washington's top official on European affairs came after French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault in March stressed the need for Ukraine to hold local polls in rebel-held regions by the end of June.
The two-year insurgency has claimed the lives of around 9,200 people.
Holding elections in the east is seen by Ukraine's German and French partners as a way to end one of Europe's bloodiest conflicts since the 1990s Balkans war.
A leading Ukrainian lawmaker said after meeting Nuland on Monday that she was setting a July deadline for the elections as a precondition for extending sanctions imposed on Russia for its alleged involvement in the war.
The pro-Western leadership in Kiev views such a timeframe as unfeasible because of both the continuing violence and the rebel command's refusal to hold the vote under Ukrainian laws that require foreign monitoring of the polls.
But Nuland said after talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that "we have put no firm date on when elections need to happen."
She stressed that the shaky peace deal signed in February 2015 in Minsk put the onus on the insurgents to allow unfettered access to flashpoints to monitors from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) -- something the rebels have failed to do.
She added that financial assistance to the ex-Soviet republic was tied to Kiev's ability to fight corruption and implement belt-tightening measures outlined in an IMF rescue package, rather than its progress toward fulfilling the points outlined in the Minsk deal.
But Nuland conceded that no decision had yet been made concerning Kiev's request to deploy an international police force that could monitor both the conflict region and the porous rebel-held portion of Ukraine's eastern border with Russia.
Kiev and its Western allies accuse Russia of helping the militants' campaign by sending its own troops and heavy weapons across the frontier -- a charge Moscow flatly denies.
"We have the OSCE (Special Monitoring Mission) that has not been allowed to fully do its job and then there are questions on whether we will need to augment that, but no decisions have been made," she said.
AFP
