{"id":33916,"date":"2021-04-13T12:05:41","date_gmt":"2021-04-13T19:05:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=33916"},"modified":"2021-04-13T12:05:41","modified_gmt":"2021-04-13T19:05:41","slug":"secretary-blinkens-meeting-with-ukrainian-foreign-minister-kuleba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=33916","title":{"rendered":"Secretary Blinken\u2019s Meeting with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba"},"content":{"rendered":"
4\/13\/2021 10:27 AM EDT<\/div>\n
\n

Office of the Spokesperson<\/p>\n

The following is attributable to Spokesperson Ned Price:<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met today with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in Brussels. Secretary Blinken affirmed the United States\u2019 unwavering support for Ukraine\u2019s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia\u2019s ongoing aggression. The Secretary expressed concern about Russia\u2019s deliberate actions to escalate tensions with Ukraine, including through its aggressive rhetoric and disinformation, increasing ceasefire violations, and movement of troops in occupied Crimea and near Ukraine\u2019s borders. Secretary Blinken and Foreign Minister Kuleba discussed the importance of advancing rule of law and economic reforms to strengthen Ukraine\u2019s institutions, support anti-corruption efforts, and further its Euro-Atlantic integration aspirations.<\/p>\n

Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State<\/p>\n

Brussels, Belgium<\/p>\n

U.S. Chief of Mission Residence<\/p>\n

SECRETARY BLINKEN:<\/strong>\u00a0 Well, good afternoon, everyone.\u00a0 I am very, very glad for this chance to meet with Foreign Minister Kuleba.\u00a0 We\u2019ve \u2013 this is our first opportunity to meet in person.\u00a0 We\u2019ve spoken on the phone on several occasions.\u00a0 In fact, President Biden has spoken with President Zelenskyy as well.\u00a0 And I just wanted to reiterate what I\u2019ve said to the foreign minister, and even more importantly, President Biden said to President Zelenskyy, which is the United States stands firmly behind the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Ukraine.\u00a0 And I\u2019m here to reaffirm that with the foreign minister today.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s particularly important at a time when we\u2019re seeing unfortunately Russia take very provocative action when it comes to Ukraine.\u00a0 We\u2019re now seeing the largest concentration of Russian forces on Ukraine\u2019s border since 2014, and that is of deep concern not only to Ukraine, but to the United States, and indeed to many of our allies and partners.\u00a0 The foreign minister just came from a session with NATO and I\u2019ll be consulting with our close NATO allies and partners in the days ahead about the situation.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll also have an opportunity to discuss Ukraine\u2019s Euro-Atlantic aspirations, the very important work that Ukraine is doing to strengthen its democratic institutions, to advance the rule of law, to make key economic reforms, all of which are critical to NATO\u2019s \u2013 to the Ukraine\u2019s future, and to its integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions.<\/p>\n

In short, we have a lot to talk about.\u00a0 (Inaudible) I\u2019m grateful to have you here today to see you, and look forward to our conversation.<\/p>\n

FOREIGN MINISTER KULEBA:<\/strong>\u00a0 Yeah, thank you, sir.\u00a0 It\u2019s a big pleasure to have this opportunity to meet you in person after we have met on the phone twice.\u00a0 We had two very fruitful conversations.\u00a0 This meeting is extremely timely given what is happening along the Ukrainian border with Russia and the occupied territories of Crimea, of Ukraine.\u00a0 And I would like to mention that Russian buildup is taking place not only along the border of Ukraine, but along the border of the democratic world.\u00a0 For thousand of kilometers, to the north and to the east of our border with Russia, there is no democracy.\u00a0 So this is the struggle that is taking place between democracies and authoritarianism.\u00a0 And in this struggle, the support of the United States is absolutely crucial and deeply appreciated.<\/p>\n

It is, I think, a good symbol that we are meeting here in Brussels on the margins of the NATO events and the meetings because it once again reinforces a very simple message that Euro-Atlantic countries, they stand by Ukraine in its difficult situation.\u00a0 And Ukraine stands by the principles and values of the Euro-Atlantic community.\u00a0 And I\u2019m sure that what has been already said publicly and through diplomatic channels to Russia in response to its aggressive actions will be supported by actions that will make it very clear for Russia that the price of its (inaudible) aggression against Ukraine will be too heavy for it to bear.\u00a0 And we will be discussing today how we can jointly ensure stability and prevent Russian and further aggression against Ukraine.\u00a0 Thank you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

4\/13\/2021 10:27 AM EDT Office of...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-u-s-a","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33916"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33917,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33916\/revisions\/33917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}