UN, EU hold emergency talks over Kiev crisis

AFP, Brussels :
Russia will come under heightened diplomatic pressure on Thursday as the UN Security Council and European leaders hold emergency talks on Ukraine, after the seizure of Crimea created the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War.
The EU summit in Brussels starts at 1030 GMT, when leaders will meet with Ukraine’s prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk who took over after the ouster of president Viktor Yanukovych last month following three months of deadly protests.
Ahead of the summit, the EU froze assets held by 18 Ukrainians accused of embezzlement, including ousted Moscow-backed Yanukovych and his son Oleksandr. As the EU confers on the crisis, 40 unarmed military personnel are expected in Crimea in a mission by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to try to defuse tensions in the flashpoint region.
Later the 15-member UN Security Council will hold closed-door talks from 1930 GMT in New York, the body’s fourth consultations on the subject since Friday.
During an acrimonious round of emergency talks Monday, Russia told other council members that Yanukovych had asked Moscow to dispatch troops to re-establish law and order in his country.
As a permanent member of the council, Russia holds veto power and can block the body’s draft resolutions.
Highlighting the strains on the ground, UN special envoy to Crimea Robert Serry was forced to cut short a visit when he was confronted by unidentified gunmen on Wednesday, but was expected to return to Kiev soon.
Serry, who had been sent to the tense Black Sea peninsula by UN chief Ban Ki-moon, was confronted by armed men after visiting the Ukrainian naval headquarters in Crimea’s capital Simferopol, he told CNN television.
Prevented from returning to his vehicle, Serry said the men who refused to identify themselves said “they have received orders…. to bring me immediately to the airport” although they declined to say from whom.
“They said it was in my own safety. I refused and a standoff ensued,” he added, saying at one point his driver was pulled from the car.
Serry sought refuge in a local cafe with his assistant to phone the mission and then after a tense two-hour standoff, he was driven to the airport and boarded the first flight out of the region – to Istanbul.
Pro-Russian forces also entered and took over parts of a Ukrainian missile base on Wednesday in the latest such incident on the peninsula, while a Ukrainian court ordered the arrest of Crimea’s newly installed pro-Russian prime minister Sergiy Aksyonov for separatism.
Violent protests have also broken out in cities in mainly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine, where several regional government buildings have been taken over by pro-Russian militants who have clashed with police.