Foreign Minister George Vella this morning welcomed the preliminary agreement reached in Geneva yesterday for immediate steps to be taken toward calming tensions in Ukraine.

The US, European Union, Ukraine and Russia yesterday agreed to establish a broad national dialogue to ensure that people's rights are protected.

The tentative agreement, reached after seven hours of negotiations, could put on hold - for now at least - economic sanctions the West had prepared to impose on Russia if the talks were fruitless.

It requires all sides to refrain from violence, intimidation or provocative actions. It calls for the disarming of all illegally armed groups and for control of buildings seized by pro-Russian separatists during the protests to be turned back over to authorities.

It also gives amnesty to protesters who comply with the demands, except those found guilty of committing capital crimes.

Dr Vella said that when one considered the dangerous state the political situation in this country had gotten to, the fact that the US, Russia, the EU and representatives of Ukraine got together to negotiate an agreement was already a positive sign. Many had believed that the talks would fail.

It was to the merit of those who took part that the agreement was reached, he said.

Dr Vella said that throughout the situation, the Maltese government had always expressed its belief in the diplomatic process in all international fora and insisted that solutions to such a problem would only be found through dialogue.

The government hoped that the agreement would come into effect as soon as possible and insisted that Ukrainians should at the same time be assisted with all possible means to overcome the political, economic and financial crisis they were facing.

It believed that for this to happen, the incitement of those in favour of Russia and those who wished to remain Ukrainian against each other had to stop.

Dr Vella congratulated the OSCE, the parties involved in the negotiations, European Commission vice-president Baroness Catherine Ashton for her capability in representing the opinion of the EU’s 28 states, US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.