ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Moscow has strongly warned Washington against providing Ukraine’s military with lethal arms in its operations against pro-Russia forces in the east. “We repeatedly heard confirmations from the (US) administration that only non-lethal weapons would be delivered to Ukraine. If there is a change in this policy, then this is a highly destabilizing factor that could seriously influence the balance of power in the region,” Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told a news conference in the capital, Moscow, on Thursday. “That (would be) a direct violation of agreements reached, including (agreements reached) with the participation of the United States,” the Russian official added. Lukashevich’s remarks came a day after Tony Blinken, the US deputy national security adviser, told a US Senate committee that Washington should consider strengthening Ukraine’s armed forces through supplying weaponry. “I believe that, given the serious Russian violations of the agreement that the

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will not leave the nuclear talks with the P5+1 in Vienna to come to Iran for consultations, a source in the Iranian negotiating team says. Earlier reports had suggested that Zarif, who is Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, may return to Tehran for consultations with “high-ranking officials.” Responding to a question about reports that US Secretary of State John Kerry has put proposals on the negotiating table, the Iranian source said the reports are not true, according to IRNA. “It’s been us who have offered various proposals since the Muscat talks up to now,” the source said, referring to the trilateral negotiations between Iran, the US and the EU held earlier in the Omani capital. The ideas raised in the talks have not yet reached a level to make it necessary for Zarif to take them to Tehran, the source said, adding that the negotiations will thus continue. Earlier, Zarif held fresh three-way talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry and EU

Finian CUNNINGHAM It’s long overdue but better late than never that Europe might just be back-pedalling on America’s aggressive agenda towards Russia. The business-like visit to Moscow this week by Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier suggests that Europe can come to its senses to seek a diplomatic resolution of the escalating tensions over the Ukraine crisis – tensions that could spark a wider continental war, or worse. Steinmeier met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in which the pair stressed the need to find a political end to the violence in Ukraine. The German diplomat – the first high-level European envoy to Moscow in several months – also talked about normalising relations between his country and Russia and of finding a way to rescind the economic sanctions that Brussels has imposed on Moscow over recent months. EU ministers in Brussels balked at imposing a fourth round of sanctions earlier this week, showing a growing division over the policy among Europ