Cremia Cricis: Obama warns on Crimea, orders sanctions over Russian moves in Ukraine
The State Department is also putting visa bans in place on a number of officials and individuals involved in the act
Washington: US President Barack Obama on Thursday ordered sanctions on people responsible for Moscow's military intervention in Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula, including travel bans and freezing of their U.S. assets and said a referendum by the region to join Russia would violate international law. U.S. officials said a list of people targeted by the sanctions had not yet been drawn up, but that Russian President Vladimir Putin was not going to be one of them.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said: "I'm not aware of a limit" on how many people could be listed. Obama signed an executive order aimed at punishing those Russians and Ukrainians responsible for the Russian military incursion into Ukraine's Crimea region, which has triggered the worst crisis in U.S.-Russian relations since the end of the Cold War.
Escalating the crisis, Crimea's parliament on Thursday voted to join Russia and its Moscow-backed government set a referendum on the decision in 10 days' time. Obama, said that the U.S. sanctions were meant to impose costs on Russia for its actions. He said the international community was acting together and warned that a referendum in Crimea would violate international law as well as the Ukrainian constitution.
"Any discussion about the future of Ukraine must include the legitimate government of Ukraine," Obama said. "In 2014, we are well beyond the days when borders can be redrawn over the heads of democratic leaders." Obama and administration officials emphasized that the U.S. sanctions could be adjusted or additional steps taken as Russian behavior changed.
"While we take these steps, I want to be clear that there is also a way to resolve this crisis that respects the interests of the Russian Federation, as well as the Ukrainian people," the president said, calling for international monitors to be allowed into Ukraine as well as talks to be held between Moscow and Kiev.
"Russia would maintain its (military) basing rights in Crimea, provided that it abides by its agreements and respects Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. And the world should support the people of Ukraine as they move to elections in May," he said, calling that the "path to de-escalation."
The State Department is also putting visa bans in place on a number of officials and individuals responsible for, or complicit in, threatening the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.
But Putin is not one of those to be singled out, a senior administration official said. "It is an unusual and extraordinary circumstance to sanction a head of state, and we would not begin our designations by doing so," the official said.