Russia, the US and the European Union have said that all sides have agreed to steps to de-escalate the crisis in Ukraine.
Their foreign ministers were speaking at the end of talks between Russia, Ukraine, the EU and US in the Swiss city of Geneva.
Analysts say the outline agreement could stay economic sanctions the West was preparing to impose on Russia.
Ukraine has been in crisis since the toppling of its pro-Moscow president.
Russia then annexed the Crimean peninsula part of Ukraine but with a Russian-speaking majority population in a move that provoked international outrage.
This was followed by the seizing of government buildings in eastern Ukraine by pro-Russian separatists opposed to the new order in the capital Kiev.
Concrete steps
Following the Geneva talks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, US Secretary of State John Kerry and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said there was agreement that all illegal military formations in Ukraine must be dissolved, and that everyone occupying buildings must be disarmed and leave them.
They added that there would be an amnesty for all anti-government protesters under the agreement.
These steps will be overseen by monitors from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
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Ukraine crisis: Russia, US, European Union strike deal
General News of Thursday, 17 April 2014
Source: myjoyonline.com
The European Union Representative in Ghana, Claude Maerten has been heckled by participants at an ongoing forum on the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) in Accra.
The subject of the EPA has been hotly debated in the country with civil society organizations pushing for it to be rejected.
Joy News Paa Kwesi Asare, who was covering the event reports that the EU representative was given a chance by the organisers to clarify a point about the agreement to the chagrin of the participants.
Conspicuous among the hecklers was Dr. Yao Graham of the Third World Network, a civil society group that had fiercely fought against the EPA over the years.
The displeased participants would not spare a second of their time to listen to whatever Mr. Claude Maerten had to say because the forum was meant to be a sort of an internal affair.
Several appeals by the moderator of the forum, Sydney Casely Hayford, a financial analyst, for sanity to prevail were blatantly rejected, Paa Kwesi observed.
He reports that it had to take the intervention of the Minister of Trade and Industry, Haruna Iddrisu to keep flaring tempers down.
Eventually, the civil society groups had their way, and the EU representative had no choice but to walk off the stage amidst clapping from the groups, Paa Kwesi said.
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EU Rep. in Ghana heckled over EPA
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