(MENAFN- The Peninsula) US President Barack Obama imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia-annexed Crimea yesterday with an executive order prohibiting American exports of goods or services to the contested peninsula and barring Crimean imports.
"The executive order is intended to provide clarity to US corporations doing business in the region and reaffirm that the United States will not accept Russia's occupation and attempted annexation of Crimea," Obama said in a statement.
The action also bans new US investments in Crimea and authorizes the US Treasury to impose sanctions on people and companies operating there.
"I again call on Russia to end its occupation and attempted annexation of Crimea, cease its support to separatists in eastern Ukraine, and fulfil its commitments under the Minsk agreements," Obama said.
The president's move comes a day after he signed into law a congressional bill allowing him to impose new sanctions on Russia over its alleged support of pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The law also authorises the president to send lethal weapons to Ukraine's military.
But Obama stressed he would not change his administration's "carefully calibrated" sanctions policy on Russia.
Obama's Crimea order follows the European Union's decision on Thursday to also place new sanctions on Crimea, as a show of resolve against Moscow during an EU leaders summit where the bloc urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a "radical change" in his stance on Ukraine.
In the sanctions - coordinated with Washington - the EU agreed to ban all investment in Crimea and cruise ships from its ports.
Obama said he "will continue to review and calibrate our sanctions, in close coordination with our international partners, to respond to Russia's actions."
Western powers have repeatedly accused Russia of stoking the Ukraine crisis, which has killed at least 4,700 people and displaced close to one million, by supplying weapons and troops to the rebels.
Moscow denies the charge.
In eastern Ukraine, government forces lost five soldiers yesterday in a sudden resurgence of clashes ahead of peace talks aimed at ending the separatist conflict.
The toll was the highest since Kiev and Russian-backed militias struck a December 9 truce designed to reinforce a tenuous September agreement that was followed by at least 1,300 more deaths.
Last week's breakthrough was meant to set the stage for comprehensive negotiations Ukranian President Petro Poroshenko had hoped to hold tomorrow with the help of European and Russian envoys in the Belarussian capital Minsk.
But a top rebel said the insurgents would only be ready by Monday - a point underscoring the types of small squabbles that have hindered political progress throughout the eight-month war.
Separatists and the new leaders in Kiev who are trying to fold their ex-Soviet republic into the West were unable yesterday to nail down a final date during a lengthy Skype video call.
"We agreed the general list of issues we need to discuss," rebel negotiator Vladislav Deynego said by telephone. "But we still have no Minsk date."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande are due this weekend to impress the importance of an immediate meeting during their third joint call to Russia's Vladimir Putin and Poroshenko in the past few days.
The scale of the fighting has subsided with the onset of winter and heavy snows that make progress across the war-scarred fields and muddied roads all but impossible.
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