the us wants new un sanctions but says it's prepared to use military force. china and russia have called for restraint and dialogue. world leaders are to hold more talks at the 620 summit. government supporters in venezuela, some of them armed, have been blocking legislators from leaving the national congress in caracas. during a special session to mark independence day, they burst into the building's interior gardens and attacked several members of congress. at least 1a people have died in a shootout between rival gangs in northern mexico. authorities say the fighting escalated after police arrived, and there may be more dead. it's the latest in a series of clashes involving factions of the sinaloa cartel. now on bbc news, it's hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk, with me, zeinab

badawi. conflict in eastern ukraine between the two sides has worsened. both sides have been accused of violating the minsk agreement. and talk of a warmer relationship between moscow and washington says. trump became president has led to worries in ukraine that its interests are being sidelined. my guest is ivanna klympush—tsintsadze, ukraine's buys prominence of the european integration. is her country now out in the cold? vice premier

stirk ivanna klympush—tsintsadze, welcome to hardtalk thank you for having me here. donald trump has said of vladimir putin that they would probably get along. he said -- isa would probably get along. he said -- is a election is properly bad news to ukraine. since his election, we have only had supportive messages from the us administration and we have had a very clear signal from donald trump himself during his recent meeting with the president of ukraine, petro poroshenko, when he confirmed the willingness to continue sanctions with regard to russian aggression against the ukraine and to support further ukrainian reforms, and to make sure that america is staying engaged in trying to sort out the conflict that

we are finding ourselves as a victim. so nothing but words of support? it flies in the face of what the former ambassador to russia said on twitter about the election night was that the biggest loser in the world that night was ukraine. ukraine's foreign minister said for the future of our world and our children, a better relationship with the united states and russia is something we should all wish for. but that relationship must not come at the expense of ukraine. there are worries. i totally subscribe to that. they have been worries, especially to any campaign, and that is why i have deliberately said since the inauguration of the new president, that is exactly the more solid understanding of the future relationship between the uk in and the us, and the political stance of the us, and the political stance of the us, and the political stance of the us has beenjust getting around. —— between ukraine and the us. that

is what we have heard from the state secretary, the secretary from a defence —— the secretary of defence, and we suppose that free, independent, and sovereign ukraine is in the national interests of the us, and in the national interests of all the european and nato countries, as well. so you say that there is the support, but we hear things, for instance, you mention sanctions, which are in place on russia. because of its annexation of crimea in 2014, and the continuing conflict in eastern ukraine. they are said to be supporting separatist breakaway rebels. mike pence has said if we have opportunities to work together with russia, i think donald trump is looking for an opportunity to begin the relationship a new. there have been hints from washington that deals can be made on sanctions in exchange for security cooperation

with russia. we do hope that bipartisan support that we receive in the american congress is not going to lead to any possible compromises with the russian federation a distance of ukraine, as well as what we hear from the representatives of the administration in the latest months. that is exactly also providing us with belief that this will not happen at the expense of the ukraine. it sounds like you are worried. i do not think so. we have received all the confirmations of continued policy from the previous administration, right now, carried onto the new administration. the 0bama administration was seen as less freely to russia than the current one. so when president petro poroshenko of ukraine met with donald trump a few weeks ago, it was

totally reassured on all accounts, was he, your president? that is exactly no —— that is exacted what i know from my colleagues who were at the meeting. what did he say about premier, for instance? my understanding is that america is going to continue for a nonrecognition policy of the nonlegal annexation of crimea. —— say about crimea. we also heard from the us ambassador at the united nations, nikki haley, as well. so i think all the signals a point in the same direction. i think that we getting more and more information on what is really going on on the ground in the ukraine, that helps to formulate the position that would be formulate the position that would be for the benefit of the ukraine, and for the benefit of the ukraine, and for the benefit of the ukraine, and for the benefit of free and democratic world, where the us is

the main actor. you say the us is the main actor. you say the us is the main actor. beretts additional concerns about the that the united states is retreating. your own former acting president said earlier this year, talking that us withdrawal from global leadership. he said he expected further destabilisation in eastern europe. he is not the only one who is saying that. we have russia and china, which president xijinping said will be the defining factor in the next ten yea rs be the defining factor in the next ten years in the world. be the defining factor in the next ten years in the worldli be the defining factor in the next ten years in the world. i think it is time right now to get back to solidarity between the european nations and the us, and other transatlantic partners, like japan 01’ transatlantic partners, like japan or canada, for that matter, that they would consolidate their efforts in actually making sure that whatever values that have been built

on, they continued through in the world. the point i have said to you, is are you worried that a withdrawal of america, whereby you seem russia and china filling the back room, that again is bad news to you. these make the united states is not going to withdraw with all the thinking that it has to do with regards to its foreign policy and the other policies in the world.” its foreign policy and the other policies in the world. i hope that these policies that have been at the core of the us for decades, they will be continued on further. one key plank of international policy, including the united states, when it comes in ukraine, is the minsk agreement. we have seen the second one signed in 2015. but it is interesting now that rex tillerson says of it that he actually thinks that, and he only said this last month, that the trump administration does not want to be handcuffed to the minsk agreement, and that ukraine and russia might find abe

bilateral solution on the conflict in eastern europe. that is not something you would welcome, is it? two i don't see how it the ukraine and russia would find the solution by themselves. -- i don't see. an extinct part of the ukrainian territory in crimea, and sending regular troops and armament to the eastern part of the country is exactly violating the international law that has the consequences not only for the ukraine, which is defending its country, but has consequences for global order. and thatis consequences for global order. and that is why it for regional security, as well, it is important for europe. and that is why it is important to the us. because if we will give in to russia in the ukraine altogether, if we sacrifice for any matter ukraine to the federation, then the russian president, in his appetite will

grow, and he will attack again. the point i am making is that the united states say they don't want to be handcuffed to the minsk agreement. that is the question i asked you. nobody properly wants to be handcuffed to any agreement. —— probably. but if this is our only chance to sort out peace or see the roadmap, how do we get to finally a real prospect of peace, we should try all the possibilities. and that is what ukraine is doing. that is not what is happening on the ground, though. the united nations say that fatalities are up 52% compared to last year. both sides are said to be violating this agreement, including industry that shelling. we are happy there is a special monitoring mission of the 0ec, to provide the

world with objective information. according to those reports of the 0ec, they are everyday shelling, thatis 0ec, they are everyday shelling, that is the russia backed militants. ukrainian forces are first and foremost protecting our own land on oui’ foremost protecting our own land on our own territory. they are firing back and whenever there is... indiscriminately? no, they are firing back, and had neverfired back on any of the civilian buildings or two dissident in residential areas, as opposed to russia backed militants who are actually firing at civilians and residential areas. we will ask the russians when they come on hardtalk about the convict in eastern europe, is in ukraine, we will do that. but i must ask you to respond to the

accusations against ukrainian forces, either regulate ukrainian armed forces, or those activists who are supporting them who are armed. the united nations high commissioner and human rights and interbreed this year ukrainian government forces and armed groups supporting you continued to violate rights in it in ukraine. whenever our forces are fighting back, when time allows, they are notifying people from the oec that they are notifying people from the 0ec that they go to buy. that is what makes us different from the russian militants. —— that they are going to fire. but what you are alluding to right now is these problems that we have unfortunately,

first and foremost, 82% of the incidents that are happening of attacks on, for instance, 0ec monitors, on the ground, they are happening on the grounds that are not controlled by the ukrainian forces. i ascended the criticisms are about both sides. i am asking you about the criticisms against ukrainian forces. —— you about the criticisms against ukrainianforces. —— i you about the criticisms against ukrainian forces. —— i am saying the criticisms are about. a report said the ukrainian government forces and pro—government militias in eastern ukraine used ungraded rockets that have killed civilians and said they use good amounts —— gauges could amount to war crimes. —— there use. due to make the investigations on the ukrainian side are all the time being carried out. there is no proof that ukrainian forces have been

using them against residential areas. moreover, iwant using them against residential areas. moreover, i want to recall specifically in the end of january, the beginning of feber, there was a huge attack of a russia led —— in the beginning of the rear, there was a huge attack i russian led militants. —— february. we were almost having survival, with 20,000 people in that city, the grinning government, that took care of the repairing of those errors, making sure people are provided with the possibility to live normal lives in these circumstances. and u nfortu nately, these circumstances. and unfortunately, that was confirmed also by the 0ec monitors that u nfortu nately also by the 0ec monitors that unfortunately those were the militants who were not allowed for even short time ceasefires to repair the grids. you're talking about the

humanitarian situation in eastern europe, ukraine and you're saying the pro— moscow separatists are responsible but i have to put it to you that there are also complaints about ukrainian activity which has led to what the russian foreign ministry warns could turn into a humanitarian catastrophe. there have been criticisms of the illegal blockades by ukrainian activists that prevent supplies going into civilians in rebel held territory, that's one of the accusations, and ukraine in march imposed a temporary freeze on rail and road car though links to breakaway enclaves, which has meant that civilians are suffering in the rebel held areas, they're not getting the supplies they're not getting the supplies they need. i hope people in the west already understood that whatever russian ministry of foreign affairs is not saying it is not necessarily a lwa ys is not saying it is not necessarily always the truth unfortunately. moreover what russian information sources are bringing on the public.

that's also quite frequently something that is made up. that is something that is made up. that is something that is made up. that is something that we have to deal with in our everyday life. what you are asking about... the ukrainian government had to make a response to the actions of the russian federation when the so—called puppet basically authorities that are installed on the occupied territories by the russian federation on us, they expropriated 26 ukrainian enterprises that are on the territory. coalmines and steel? yes, operating within ukrainian law but they expropriated that so after that we couldn't continue working with them. moreover the russian federation decided to recognise the so—called ids produced on the local ground in the territory not controlled by the ukraine. and they

introduced the ruble as the only currency. so the ukrainian government unfortunately had to react with the measure that we had to take. the blockade. but civilians might be suffering as a result. again the un commissionerfor human rights ina again the un commissionerfor human rights in a report looking at the situation in the ukraine to may this year has said he's worried about restrictions on the freedom of movement is because it means internally displaced people, the idps, entitled to pavements and social payments, living in rebel held areas in eastern ukraine, to renew their registration in government—held territory but it's so government—held territory but it's so difficult for them because they are subjected to long queues at exeter and entry checkpoints, it exposes civilians to degrading conditions for protracted periods until the risk of death from shelling. you're also responsible

for civilians suffering? over the last half of year we have extremely improved the whole registration process of the internally displaced people. but not until may this year. and the ukraine right now has more than1.6 and the ukraine right now has more than 1.6 million of internally displaced people, think about that, that number. we are taking care of all the payments. if they are internally placed... people in occupied territory who have fled their homes, they are fully paid all their homes, they are fully paid all the pensions and social care. there are thousands on thousands of them not receiving their pensions and social payments? these are idps who would not receive the payments and that's been confirmed by the recent eu report and i'm sure... there aren't long queues for people trying to get their pensions all social

payments any more, is that what you're saying? there are no queues, there are queues on the grounds where people are crossing the touchline from the opt to buy territory to the ukrainian territory and backwards —— occupied. that's normal with regard to security checks they are going through and u nfortu nately checks they are going through and unfortunately the militants are not allowing us to open up additional crossing points. all the humanitarian suffering for the civilians is all the fault of the separatists and the russians, nothing to do with ukrainian activity? we wouldn't have had the people suffering if it were not for the russian aggression to the territory of the ukraine and if it was not for russia pouring in all the weapons and soldiers and training those militants on the territory of our country. moscow says it doesn't have troops inside eastern ukraine. that unfortunately is the lie they are trying to build

their case on. the fact is you have this long border with russia, you're near neighbour, and when it comes to looking at the medium and the long—term, you're going to have to get on, you've got people who have got ties, large number of people in the ukraine speak russian as their native language, and yet here you are saying you would like to pursue nato membership at some stage, which would be like a red rag to a bull to russia. is it wise for you to be throwing fuel on the relationship like this and adding fuel to the fire of the conflict in eastern ukraine in this way? russia has attacked ukraine specifically at the time when ukraine had a non—aligned status. when ukrainian legislation said we're not going tojoin status. when ukrainian legislation said we're not going to join any political or defence or security alliance with anybody else and we will stay neutral. it did not protrude the russian federation from actually not attacking ukraine even

though we had all the basis for our positive relationship, we have the strategic agreement of partnership with russian federation, moreover the russian federation was one of the russian federation was one of the guarantors of the ukrainian subtree and territorial integrity on the basis of the budapest memorandum when ukraine was the third major nuclear power in the world that gave up nuclear power in the world that gave up its nuclear weapons. who's pushing you to drop your non—aligned status and say come and join us in nato? nato is not asking you to join, you know that's something that's not going to happen for a very long time, if ever. it's the response of our politicians to the ukrainian society, the understanding of the ukrainian society that first and foremost right now we have to concentrate on being capable to defend ourselves. so you want to join nato? and once we are ready, once we are integrated functionally into nato and into operable, we will

be able to submit our membership application. president poroshenko said there will be a referendum on joining nato, is that so? at some point but first and foremost we have to understand we need to do a lot of homework before we're ready to submit the application. your portfolio, european integration, ukraine, would like to add some stagejoin the ukraine, would like to add some stage join the european ukraine, would like to add some stagejoin the european union ukraine, would like to add some stage join the european union again, eu commissionerjean—claude juncker said that wouldn't happen at least for 20 or 30 years because they've tried to expand to quickly. who's going to absorb a country of 45 million such as ukraine, it's not going to happen, it's a fairytale? it was a choice of the ukrainian people during the revolution of dignity, which started just because the previous president of ukraine did not sign the association agreement with the eu and the desire of people is translating right now

in the very specific reform and transformation agenda for the country that we are carrying on right now. and it will become a truth one day and i'm sure everybody will only be benefiting from ukraine joining the eu. as i said, there is a great deal of scepticism both within your country and within the eu about that ever happening. finally and briefly, corruption is a huge issue in ukraine, and i know there isn't a lot of time to talk about it, but it is something which your government came into power saying it was going to tackle, it's endemic in the ukraine, from allegations top to bottom. what are you going to be doing about it? you've got to seize... i fully understand why you're saying this andi understand why you're saying this and i understand that this is getting much better coverage in the west, but i would like to underline that we have created legislature to fight corruption. we have created institutions like the national anticorruption

institutions like the national anticorru ption bureau institutions like the national anticorruption bureau and the national anticorruption anticorruption bureau and the national anticorru ption prosecution agency for preventing corruption that are already fully functional and carrying out the actions against high officials. we have opened up... we have opened up of all the politicians, their declarations of their assets, totally open to public. this is ensuring a lot of accountability. we have introduced the best ever system that is recognised in the west for the electronic public procurement, which is already saving us 10% of our public procurement budget. so we're closing the loopholes in our procedures that would invite any corruption prone activities, and i'm sure that with time we will tackle this endemic issue that we have to deal with. vice prime minister ivanna klympush—tsintsadze, thank

you very much indeed for coming on hardtalk. thank you. thank you. hello again. we've got more of that hot and humid weather coming up across england and wales. yesterday we had temperatures of 30 degrees in both heathrow and wisley in surrey, and we're going to see temperatures again getting to those kind of levels later in the afternoon. mind you, for some of us, there will also be some fairly big thunderstorms around over the next 24 hours. the first place that could see some storms is actually in the morning across southern counties of england, but these storms will have about two miles of dry air beneath them so there might not be a huge amount of rain despite the potential for lots of thunder and lightning first thing in the morning.

away from those storms, may be a bit of murky weather around the coastline but essentially quite a bit of sunshine for wales, the midlands and northern counties of england with those temperatures rising quickly. partly cloudy for northern ireland and a disappointing start in scotland with a band of rain pushing eastwards, temperatures at 9am about 14 or 15 degrees in glasgow. now, through the rest of the day that first batch of storms works northwards. hot and humid conditions across england and wales with that humidity sparking some further storms across the midlands and northern england later in the day, and those storms could be more significant. meanwhile, for the north of the uk, temperatures creeping up towards the 20 degree mark, so a bit warmer than it's been over the last days for some, the hottest weather further south. later in the afternoon and evening time, these thunderstorms could get really lively in parts of eastern england. not too many places seeing this happening but one or two storms could bring the best part of a month's worth of rain in just a few hours, so it could cause some localised disruption. those storms will clear away to the north sea and we'll be left with a band of rain crossing scotland, rather soupy conditions then through the night with lowest

temperatures around 18 in london. a quieter weather day on friday. england and wales again with the best of the hot and humid conditions. more of that sunshine to come. there'll be a few showers for southern scotland and northern england, but for many of us it's a dry kind of day. temperature wise, still a range from the north to south. about 17 in glasgow and 28, 29 or possible 30 still in parts of the south east england. the weekend starts off with a band of rain in central areas, easing to showers. again the best of the hot conditions in south—east england but still relatively cool for the time of year further north in scotland and northern ireland because our winds coming round from quite a long way north. sunday looks like we'll be seeing the gradual change to cooler and fresher conditions across all of the country as we see low pressures tending to kind of gang up across the uk, so those temperatures dropping for example in london into next week. hello. this is bbc news. i'm david eades. our top stories: the us warns north korea

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