Blanar meets Lavrov
Máte problém s prehrávaním? Nahláste nám chybu v prehrávači.
Foreign Minister Juraj Blanár was criticized for meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during a conference in Turkey on Friday. The two sat down for a meeting with their advisers and afterwards shook hands for the camera. Prime Minister Robert Fico said it was his idea and that he had encouraged Blanár to seek out Lavrov. He said it was a demonstration of a balanced foreign policy. President Zuzana Čaputová said the meeting “brought us no closer to peace in Ukraine.”
Lavrov is on the EU’s sanctions list after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia has called Slovakia an enemy, like all NATO members.
The meeting was first reported by the Russian Ministry, which distributed photos of the two men, accompanied by advisers, sitting at a conference table.
“Without communication, there will never be a diplomatic solution, and without a diplomatic solution, no wars will end,” said Blanár after the meeting with the Russian minister.
“I also told him the government of Slovakia respects the basic principles of international law, such as the territorial integrity and sovereignty of member countries, anchored in the UN Charter,” said Blanár.
Prime Minister Robert Fico said he had encouraged Blanár to meet with the Russians. “I knew about the meeting. I recommended to the minister that he meet the Russian minister,” he said. He pointed out that the Defense Minister had recently met with his American counterpart.
As expected, the opposition parties in parliament were very critical.
Tomáš Valášek, a former ambassador and now MP for the opposition party Progresívne Slovensko said: “Smer party members, including Blanár, talk about peace, but their actions and words support pro-Russian narratives, including proposals for Ukraine to give up its own territory.”
The opposition party Sloboda a Solidarita (SaS) says Blanár’s meeting is an act of hostility to Slovakia’s allies. “Instead of summoning the Russian ambassador to Slovakia after the death of Aleksei Navalny, as we proposed in the parliament’s resolution, Blanár shakes hands with Vladimir Putin’s closest person,” said SaS MP Juraj Krúpa.
And the chairman of the Christian Democrats, KDH, Milan Majersky, wondered: “Even in Paris, Róbert Fico did not present a peace plan. Nor did the Foreign Minister present such a plan to Lavrov. What peace are they talking about when they have no plan prepared?”
The Ambassador for the United Kingdom, Nigel Baker, also weighed in with a recorded statement in Slovak on the Embassy’s Facebook page. He said he is surprised by statements that "the West" does not support peace. “Firstly, Slovakia is part of the West. Slovakia is not an observer, or some foreign land, but an important partner, and member of "the West". NATO did not "expand" into Slovakia, and it is not some foreign entity. We all wish for this war to end. But Russia cannot violate international agreements and use military force to invade a country and dictate their future.Any peace that does not restore Ukraine's internationally recognised borders, and denies them the right to choose their future is not peace. We need only to look back to the Munich agreement of 1938 to see what a weak "peace" can mean,” he said.
(TASR, Reuters, RTVS)
