Ambassador questions Harper’s Ukraine trip,
Russia’s Mamedov hopes visit won’t stir up radicals
OTTAWA — Russia’s ambassador to Canada says he hopes Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s visit to Ukraine this weekend will contribute to a peaceful resolution to the standoff over Crimea and not add to the problem by stirring up anti-Russian sentiment.
Georgiy Mamedov also dismissed warnings that his country was in danger of becoming isolated, and warned Tuesday about retaliatory sanctions against Canadian officials.
Harper is scheduled to touch down Saturday in Kyiv for a brief meeting in advance of a nuclear security summit in the Netherlands and a trip to Germany to promote Canada’s free trade deal with the European Union. U.S. President Barack Obama has invited G-7 allies to discuss Russia’s involvement in Ukraine as they gather for the nuclear summit.
Harper’s Ukraine visit is intended to show Canada’s solidarity with the new interim government and with those who rose up last month to oust the country’s pro-Russian president from power.
The prime minister also is likely to condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government for annexing the southern Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea through military action and an impromptu referendum.
Asked about the trip, Mamedov said Harper has a right to visit Ukraine.
“The only question in my mind: Will it help with calming down and stabilizing Ukraine? Or will it (encourage) radicals who would like nothing better than to prolong and intensify a confrontation with Russia?” Mamedov said at a news conference.
“Will it help with calming down and stabilizing
Ukraine?” GEORGIY MAMEDOV, RUSSIA’S
AMBASSADOR TO CANADA
Harper and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird have been vocal critics of Russia’s actions in Crimea, and have compared the situation with Nazi Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938.
Mamedov said he hoped Harper’s visit would “help to find a solution around Ukraine” and “wipe out” the prime minister’s comparisons between Russia and Nazi Germany.
“That’s my hope,” the ambassador said. “But what will happen? I don’t know.”
Mamedov dismissed threats Russia was in danger of economic and political isolation if it didn’t reverse course on Crimea, saying his country was too vast and important to be cut off like a rogue state.
“You can’t isolate Russia,” said Mamedov, who has served as Russia’s ambassador to Canada since 2003 and is one of his country’s most respected diplomats.
He suggested the West’s heavy reliance on Russian energy exports would prevent Europe and the U.S. from “shooting themselves in the leg.”
“So I feel quite confident that we will come to a compromise,” he said. “Even in the worst-case scenario, I feel assured that we will not only survive, but prosper, given our diversified economic ties with other countries of the world.”
Mamedov also described Canadian sanctions against seven senior Russian officials as “a show,” saying he didn’t think those affected have assets or property in Canada and they “won’t die from grief because they won’t get visas to the United States or Canada.”
At the same time, he said the sanctions “will, of course, be reciprocated. Some people won’t receive visas to Russia.”
Despite the standoff over Ukraine, the ambassador maintained that relations between Canada and Russia “have a solid foundation.”
He cited co-operation in the Arctic, joint efforts to fight international terrorism, and the fact both countries are large energy exporters as key to this relationship.