EMBASSY INFORMS
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Five years ago, on July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines ‘Boeing’, a civilian aircraft operating flight МН17 from Amsterdam to Kuala-Lumpur, crashed in eastern Ukraine. All 298 people on board died.
Unfortunately, this tragedy became a tool in a dirty political game. Within only hours, if not minutes, after the crash, as if prompted by someone, media and then Western political leaders launched a salvo of accusations against Russia for the killing of innocent people.
We are thankful to the Peruvian Presidency for convening this meeting.
For a start, we absolutely agree that to protect the language of the titular nation is a duty of any State, including Ukraine. What we are saying is aimed not to undermine the Ukrainian language, which people in Russia understand, love, and respect; but to protect the Russian language, that the biased Ukrainian authorities took to eradicate using draconian ignorant methods, which is ban on the use of Russian in the major part of Ukrainian public space. I do not even say that this runs counter to any convention on protection of national minorities and basic human rights. What I say is that it runs counter to any common sense and basic norms of civilized behavior.
Question: How would you comment on UK’s decision not to issue a visa to the Russian delegate who intended to participate in the Global Conference on Media Freedom? Answer: It is well-known that visas for official travel have become one of the problems of the current Russia-UK relations. But even in these conditions not issuing a visa to a representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry travelling to participate in the conference looks really weird. The UK side itself invited the Russian side to participate in the conference, accredited the Russian delegate, but then refused to issue him a visa, thus sabotaging the visit.
Question: What could you say about the refusal of the British authorities to accredit the Russian news agencies RT and Sputnik at the Global Conference for Media Freedom?
Maria Zakharova: One gets the impression that having announced an event with a flashy title, London decided to show the whole world an example of manipulating public opinion. Judge for yourself. One of the main declared goals of this forum is to unite diplomatic efforts to protect media freedom and discuss violations of the rights of media workers. So what do we have in reality?
In the recent interview with President Putin, the Financial Times seems to have launched a discussion on liberalism only at its own peril. Inadvertently, a real problem was touched upon, whose pressing nature is no longer denied by anyone in the West. The newspaper had to admit it in its Editorial of 29 June. Its authors claim that the threat to liberalism comes from within, including President Trump and his policies, Brexit and, certainly, the rise of “populist nationalism”. They refer to voters’ disillusionment with liberalism and loss of confidence in the economic system and trust in political elites. The latter are invited to redouble their efforts to take into consideration issues raised by voters and “to renew liberalism”.
We condemn the seizure of the super tanker sailing under the Panama flag on July 4, conducted by the Gibraltar authorities aided by Great Britain’s Royal Marine Commando unit. We view the seizure of the vessel and its cargo as a deliberate action aimed at aggravating the situation around Iran and Syria. Laudatory comments by top US and British officials immediately after the operation confirm this conclusion and prove that the action had been long in the making with the involvement of respective services and agencies of several countries.
As we have learned, British organisers of the Global Conference for Media Freedom, due to take place in London on 10-11 July, have refused to accredit journalists from the RT channel. The reason given was that the quota of journalists invited to the Conference had already been reached – and that despite the fact that RT had sent the request several weeks ago and has long been trying, unsuccessfully, to get a meaningful reply.
16 months have passed since the mysterious incident in Salisbury. The British side continuously ignores multiple appeals by Russia to clear up the circumstances surrounding the incident, provide transparency of the investigation, allow access to the affected Russian citizens and launch substantive cooperation to establish, what and how happened in Salisbury in reality. As before, more than 80 Notes Verbales sent to the Foreign Office and the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation for legal assistance over Russia’s own criminal case have been left unanswered. At the same time the British authorities continue to take an aggressive stance towards Russia, while claiming to have irrefutable evidence that our country was behind the incident. However, the British side does not bother to present the “evidence” either to Russia, or to their own allies, or to the public.
On 3 July Foreign and Commonwealth Office announced that during general debate in the UN Human Rights Council the British delegation called on Russia “to grant international human rights monitors access to illegally annexed Crimea”. Leaving aside the issue of “illegal annexation” (Russia’s stance on this subject is well-known), we would like to stress that the Republic of Crimea is open for visits of all international delegations and any foreign guests in general, on equal terms with all the other regions of our country. The FCO statement is therefore confusing. We consider it as yet another example of abuse of human rights issues by our British colleagues.
Ahead of the official visit to Italy, Vladimir Putin gave an interview to a leading Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
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