By John Irish
PARIS (Reuters) – France said on Monday that leaders at a meeting on Ukraine this weekend had asked the European Commission to put together new “massive” sanctions targeting Russia’s oil and financial sector if Russia failed to agree a ceasefire.
The EU is already working on a 17th sanctions package that it aims to adopt by the next foreign ministers meeting on May 20, but speaking to reporters in Normandy Jean-Noel Barrot said work had also started on tougher measures beyond that package.
“What we are preparing are additional sanctions which target the energy and financial sector. We asked this weekend for the European Commission to prepare new more important sanctions to force Russian President Vladimir Putin into a peace logic,” Barrot said after a telephone call with European counterparts and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Leaders from France, Germany, Britain and Poland were in Ukraine on Saturday and held a video call with other leaders, including Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
U.S. President Donald Trump offered on Monday to join prospective Ukraine-Russia talks in Turkey later on Thursday after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in a fresh twist to the stop-start peace talks process, said he would travel to Istanbul where, he said, he would be waiting to meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Russia has yet to say whether it will attend.
European nations had been pushing for a ceasefire before any such meeting warning of impending coordinated U.S.-Europe sanctions, but that now appeared to be dependent on whether talks happened on Thursday and their potential outcome, diplomats said.
“We support the idea of a contact between President Zelenskiy and President Putin. Putin proposed a direct contact with Zelenskiy and Zelenskiy accepted so Putin must keep to his part of contract and go to Istanbul Thursday,” Barrot said.
He said that for serious discussions to happen there needed to be a ceasefire because it was not possible to negotiate amid air strikes and drones.
“We are preparing powerful and massive sanctions if he doesn’t accept a ceasefire,” Barrot said.
He said potential European sanctions were being coordinated with a U.S. sanctions bill being put together by senators that would impose tariffs of 500% on countries that imported Russian oil.
(Reporting by John Irish; Editing by Toby Chopra)
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