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Eastern Europe
April 27, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 17
G7 foreign ministers take a hard line on Russia
Ben Aris in Berlin
G7 foreign ministers took a hard line on Russia, promising unity in the face of Russian aggression on April 23. The ministers of the richest countries in the world accused Russia of “a pattern of irresponsible and destabilising” behaviour, but in an irony that highlights the changing balance of global power went on to call on Moscow to help resolve the conflict in Syria.
Russia used to attend these meetings as part of the G8 under former president Boris Yeltsin, but after President Vladimir Putin took over it was expelled as part of the sanctions imposed on the country following the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
However, the group has become increasingly irrelevant in the face of the rise of emerging markets. It is telling that when the then US president George W. Bush called a meeting of world leaders to deal with the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis it was a G20 meeting that he called, not a G7.
Nonetheless, the foreign ministers took a tough line on Russia at the latest meeting, agreeing to create a “working group to study Russia’s malign behaviour” as well as develop a coordinated
plan to push back against foreign interference in elections.
Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said G7 ministers were deeply concerned about Russia’s destabilising efforts from interfering in elections. “The G7 countries are committed to
G7 foreign ministers meeting in Toronto, Canada to talk about Russia
preventing, stopping and responding to foreign interference,” she said at a press conference at the end of talks, reports Reuters.
Freeland is probably the best qualified of the ministers to comment on Russia, having been the Financial Times bureau chief in Moscow in the early 90s when she got to know all the leading oligarchs well. As a politician she has become
an outspoken critic of Putin’s Russia.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was equally outspoken. Speaking to reporters on the margins of the meeting, he said G7 ministers had agreed on the need to be vigilant about Russia. “What we decided ... was that we were going to set up a G7 group that would look at Russian malign behaviour in all its manifestations — whether
it’s cyber warfare, whether it’s disinformation, assassination attempts, whatever it happens to be, and collectively try to call it out,” reports Reuters.
Where the unified front cracked was on the question of Syria. Acting US Secretary of State John Sullivan called on Moscow to stop creating “impediments to peace” in Syria and to play a role in ending the seven-year-long conflict. “Russia must be a constructive partner in Syria or will be held accountable,” he told reporters.
The problem here is that it has become increas- ingly obvious that Russia is in control of the future of Syria and Putin has effectively sidelined western efforts to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad