Leaders cancel G8 summit, excluding Russia from group Monday, Mar. 24 2014 Canada and other Group of Seven leading industrialized nations are cancelling a G8 summit with Russia in Sochi and instead are holding a G7 meeting in Belgium, effectively suspending Moscow from the club over its annexation of Crimea. The G7, which announced the measures after an emergency meeting on the sidelines of a nuclear security summit in The Hague, stopped short of formally expelling Russia from the G8. More Related to this Story Ukraine pulling forces out of Russian-occupied Crimea as Moscow maintains pressure Harper leads charge to expel Russia from G8, ramp up sanctions Ukraine Globe in Kiev: Yatsenyuk’s precarious balancing act Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Senator Dick Durbin debate Russia on Face the Nation. Vanessa Johnston reports. Watch Video: Mitt Romney accuses Obama of naiveté on Russia Ukrainian airbase seized and naval base surrendered as Russia consolidates its control in Crimea Watch Video: Russia consolidates Crimea control A Russian armored vehicle attempts to enter Belbek Airbase in Crimea where Ukrainian forces are resisting handing over control. Rough Cut (no reporter narration). Watch Video: Russian armored vehicle attempts to enter Crimea airbase G7 countries described the move as ending participation in the G8 until Moscow reverses itself. This group came together because of shared beliefs and shared responsibilities. Russia’s actions in recent weeks are not consistent with them. Under these circumstances, we will not participate in the planned Sochi summit, the G7 leaders said in a statement of the scheduled June meeting. We will suspend our participation in the G8 until Russia changes course and the environment comes back to where the G8 is able to have a meaningful discussion, the G7 countries said in a statement. G7 leaders warned they stand ready to impose sanctions on entire sectors of the Russian economy if Moscow makes further moves. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper raised the prospect of sanctions on Russias petroleum industry. Were tasking our energy ministers to meet – thats a very sensitive area, as you know – so we can examine what the options are available to us longer term to continue the pressure on the Putin government, he said. The measures came as Ukraine told its remaining troops to leave the Black Sea peninsula for their own safety and Russian troops forced their way into a Ukrainian marine base in the port of Feodosia Monday. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, shrugged off the prospect of exclusion from the Group of Eight shortly before G7 leaders announced their decision, calling it “not a big problem” if the G8 didn’t meet. “If our Western partners think that this format has outlived itself, we are not trying to hold onto this format,” Mr. Lavrov told media in The Hague. Mr. Harper said he doesnt believe Russia when it insists it does not care about being suspended from the club of industrialized nations and what he called its increasing diplomatic isolation over Crimea. A regime does not spend $50-billion in the Olympics if it does not care about its international reputation, Mr. Harper said. The G8 was created in 1998, several years after the Halifax Group of Seven summit where leaders invited then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin to dinner. No country has ever been expelled from the G8. The latest effort to ratchet up pressure on Russia came hours after Moscow slapped an entry ban on 13 Canadian lawmakers and senior civil servants in retaliation for punitive sanctions Ottawa has levied on Russian decision makers over the annexation of Crimea and destabilization of Ukraine. G7 leaders met for more than an hour at Cathuis, the official residence of the Dutch prime minister in The Hague, early Monday evening. They were tightly seated at a round table in a small room, with U.S. President Barack Obama sandwiched between U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The anti-Canadian sanctions announced by Moscow Monday are largely symbolic and do not target Prime Minister Stephen Harper, or Foreign Affairs John Baird. Instead they cover a handful of senior Canadian civil servants, a couple of senior ranking Conservatives, three Tory backbenchers and two outspoken opposition critics. Those hit with the ban on entry to Russia include: the country’s top civil servant, Privy Council Clerk Wayne Wouters, House of Commons speaker Andrew Scheer, Government House Leader Peter Van Loan, senior foreign affairs adviser Christine Hogan, deputy secretary to the cabinet Jean-François Tremblay, Liberal MPs Chrystia Freeland and Irwin Cotler, Senator Raynell Andreychuk, NDP MP Paul Dewar, Conservative MP Dean Allison and Ted Opitz and James Bezan as well as Paul Grod, head of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. The Liberal’s Irwin Cotler shrugged off the sanction. Speaking via Twitter, he said: “I see my travel ban from Russia as a badge of honour, not a mark of exclusion.”
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 01:14:58 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015