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Sikorski: 'Sanctions against Russia were inevitable'

PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge 30.07.2014 08:51
Poland's foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski has said the newly agreed EU sanctions against Russia were 'inevitable' and that they should make Moscow 'sit up and think.'

Russian
Russian President Vladimir Putin looks on during a meeting with his adviser Mikhail Fedotov, Chairman of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, Russia, 29 July 2014. EPA/MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV

The 28 ambassadors of the EU member states approved a package of sanctions on Tuesday in Brussels, aimed at the oil industry, the arms trade and sensitive technologies, following Russia's continued support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.

The US followed suit, with President Barack Obama announcing that America would also broaden its web of sanctions against Russia.

“This decision was inevitable,” Sikorski told the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.

“These sanctions should convince President Putin that the West does exist as a community of values, and that it is capable of unity when fundamental principles of international law are broken,” he said.

“These are sanctions that should prompt the Russian leadership to sit up and think.”

Sikorski also reaffirmed his conviction that the MH17 Malaysian Airlines plane was shot down by pro-Russian separatists.

“I hope that President Putin will make use of this latest opportunity to withdraw his support for separatism in Ukraine,” he said.

“If it is true that he was falsely informed, and that he is only now beginning to understand that it really was separatists who downed the Malaysian plane with EU citizens on board, then this is a further opportunity to withdraw from the policy of providing the separatists with increasingly advanced weaponry.”

The precise details of the EU sanctions will be revealed on Wednesday, and the package must also be approved by the governments of each member state. (nh)

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