MOSCOW, April 21 (RIA Novosti) - Authorities in Kiev continue to arrest activists in Ukraine's southeastern regions and violate the rights of journalists instead of implementing the amnesty agreed upon during a summit in Geneva last week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday.
"One of the points in the Geneva Agreement demands amnesty, as I've already said, to the those politically detained and participants of protests," Lavrov said.
"Instead of freeing the detained, in particular the People's Governor of Donetsk, Pavel Gubarev, the Kiev authorities continue to arrest political opponents in the southeast," Lavrov said during a joint press conference in Moscow with his Mozambique counterpart Oldemiro Baloi.
"Journalists - and not just Russian journalists but foreign journalists - are not allowed into those regions where they want to see what's going on. This all, of course, causes exasperation," he added.
Lavrov's remarks came a day after a series of violent clashes in Ukraine on Easter Sunday. Unknown gunmen drove by a checkpoint in the city of Slaviansk at around 2 a.m. local time and opened fire at the self-defense forces, who were celebrating Easter.
Moscow believes that such violation of the Easter cease-fire brings into question the promise of the Geneva accords. The Russian Foreign Ministry has said the provocation of the militants points to Kiev's reluctance to disarm nationalists and extremists.
Attempting to de-escalate the conflict, top diplomats from Russia, Ukraine, the United States and the European Union approved a set of measures in Geneva on April 17. The statement adopted on the crisis in Ukraine encourages the conflicting parties to refrain from violence, extremism and provocation, disarm illegal groups, vacate illegally occupied buildings and initiate a national dialogue on constitutional reform.
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