Ukraine-EU summit participants failed to agree on stepping up Russia sanctions for Kerch Strait incident – Poroshenko

12:53, 09.07.2019 1 min read

Participants in the Ukraine-EU summit on Monday failed to reach agreement on stepping up sanction pressure on Russia for non-compliance with the UN International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea's order on freeing the Ukrainian sailors detained in the Kerch Strait area in November 2018, European Solidarity Party leader and former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said.

"The first thing that they failed to do is [...] broadening the sanctions," Poroshenko said on the Ukraina television channel.

"As far as I understand, they couldn't agree on that. But this is extremely important as an instrument for putting pressure on Russia concerning its obligation to comply with the tribunal's decisions on the Ukrainian sailors," he said.

The final declaration of the summit also did not address the problem of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, Poroshenko said. "They couldn't make sure that the final declaration include the Nord Stream 2 issue, while the end of 2019 is drawing near," Poroshenko said.