Armed pro-Russian militants pass next to the wreckage of a Boeing 777, of Malaysia Arilines flight MH17 debris, which crashed during flight over the eastern Ukraine region near Donetsk, Ukraine, 18 July: photo - EPA/ANASTASIA VLASOVA
President Barack Obama said Friday that the US was preparing tougher sanctions against Russia after it has failed to stop the violence in eastern regions of Ukraine, which has led to the death of 298, half them Dutch, on board the downed Malaysian Airline's Boeing 777.
"This certainly will be a wake-up call for Europe and the world that there are consequences to an escalating conflict in eastern Ukraine; that it is not going to be localized, it is not going to be contained," Obama told reporters in Washington after talks with Germany's Angela Merkel, British PM David Cameron, among other world leaders.
In Poland, Ukraine's western neighbour, President Bronislaw Komorowski said after an emergency meeting with Prime Minister Donald Tusk that what was once a problem for Ukrainians is now “a global problem”.
Bronisław Komorowski speaking to reporters, Friday evening: photo - PAP/Radek Pietruszka
Komorowski called for an immediate ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, but this must be accompanied by action “to deter attempts to destroy the Ukrainian state and create a permanent conflict in the region”.
Floral tributes are laid outside the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Friday July 18, 2014. Malaysia Airlines MH17, believed to have been shot down by a surface to air missile over Ukraine Thursday killed 298 people including 27 Australians: photo - AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
Malaysian transport minister Liow Tiong Lai is flying to Kiev on Saturday to ensure an investigating team gets safe access to the site of the downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.
Staff from the OSCE visited the crash site on Friday but complained that they did not have the full access to evidence that could shine light on who shot down the plane on its way from Amsterdam to the Malaysian capital.
"We encountered armed personnel who acted in a very impolite and unprofessional manner. Some of them even looked slightly intoxicated," an OSCE spokesman is quoted by Reuters as saying.
An international consensus is emerging, however, that the plane was brought down by a missile fired by separatists and that there was no reason to doubt the validity of a widely circulated audiotape in which voices identified as rebels discussed the downing of the aircraft. (pg)