MIC chief (aka US
President) Barack Obama 'The Baby Bomber' says he and leaders from other allied regimes in the Orwellian NWO Group
of Eight (G8) have decided to oust Russia from the group over the
crisis in Ukraine and the status of Crimea.UK BANNED Press TV: The Autonomous Republic of Crimea declared independence from Ukraine on March 17 and formally applied to become part of Russia following a referendum a day earlier, in which nearly 97 percent of the participants voted in favor of the move.
On March 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law the documents officially making Crimea part of the Russian territory. Putin said the move was carried out based on the international law.
"International law prohibits the acquisition of part or all of another state's territory through coercion or force," the White House said in a statement on Monday. "To do so violates the principles upon which the international system is built. We condemn the illegal referendum held in Crimea in violation of Ukraine's constitution.”
"We also strongly condemn Russia's illegal attempt to annex Crimea in contravention of international law and specific international obligations," the statement added.
Earlier in the day, Russia brushed off the Western threat to expel it from the G8.
"G8 is an informal organization that does not give out any membership cards and, by its definition, cannot remove anyone," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during a news conference.
"If our Western partners believe that this organizational format has outlived, so be it. At least, we are not attached to this format and we don't see a great misfortune if it will not gather. Maybe, for a year or two, it will be an experiment for us to see how we live without it," Lavrov stated.
Meanwhile, the Group of Seven (G7) is threatening to step up its measures against Russia over the Ukraine crisis.
In a statement issued after crisis talks in The Hague on Monday, the G7 members said they are ready to intensify coordinated sanctions against Moscow. They also called on Russia to immediately de-escalate the situation.
The G7 has snubbed a planned meeting that Putin was due to host in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi in June, saying the group will hold a meeting in Brussels without Russia instead of the wider G8 summit.
In 1998, the group of industrialized nations known as the G7 -- the US, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and Italy -- added Russia to its fold, transforming it from the G7 to the G8.
On Monday, the US president’s Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters in The Hague there is no point in including Russia in the G8.
"Our view is simply that if Russia is flagrantly violating international law and the order that the G7 has hoped to build since the end of the Cold War, there's no need to engage with Russia," Rhodes said.
“What Russia has done has been a violation of that entire international order built up over many decades,” he added.
Recently, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland disclosed that Washington has “invested” about $5 billion in “promoting democracy” in Ukraine over the past two decades.
In early February, Nuland visited Ukraine and held meetings with anti-Kremlin politicians who organized anti-government protests that led to the ouster of Viktor Yanukovych, the country’s democratically-elected president.
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Russia not clinging to G8 if West does not want it – Russian FM
RT: Russia is not clinging to the G8 format, as all major world problems
can be discussed at other international venues such as G20, Russia’s
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.
“The G8 is an informal club, no one gives out membership
cards and no one can expel members,” Lavrov told a media
conference at the Hague. “If our Western partners believe
that this format has exhausted itself, let it be. We are not
clinging to it.”
He went on to say that many believe that the G8 has already
fulfilled its mission as many issues are now discussed at the G20
forum.
“Generally speaking, there are also other formats for
considering many questions, including the UN Security Council,
the Middle East Quartet and the P5+1 on the Iranian nuclear
problem,” Lavrov told journalists.
The Minister also commented on earlier reports regarding Australia considering not inviting President Vladimir Putin to the November G20 meeting, which is going to be held in Brisbane.
“The G20 was not established by Australia, which voiced the proposal not to invite Russia to the meeting. We created the format all together,” Lavrov said.
Meanwhile, G7 leaders – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US – are also holding a gathering at The Hague. According to the media, the Ukraine issue is high on the agenda.
Russia’s top diplomat is in the Netherlands, where representatives of over 50 states and chiefs of the UN, the EU, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the European Police Office have gathered for the Nuclear Security Summit to address the threat of nuclear terrorism.
On the sidelines of the gathering, Lavrov met with US Secretary of State John Kerry and yet again discussed the Ukraine question, which has caused quite a chill in relations between the two powers.
“We discussed the necessity to call on the authorities in Kiev to pay serious attention to the constitutional reform, which would take into consideration the interests of all Ukrainian regions,” he said.
However, Lavrov admitted, that it is their evaluation of the situation and they “cannot impose” this idea on the Ukrainian leadership. Still, it would be very difficult to overcome the “Ukraine’s deep internal crisis” without such a reform, the Russian minister believes.
According to Lavrov, Kerry realizes that it is necessary to “push” the Ukrainian authorities into fulfilling the February-21 agreement on the crisis settlement, which was signed by ousted President Viktor Yanukovich, opposition leaders and foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland.
On Friday, Ukraine's coup-imposed government and the EU signed the core elements of a political association agreement; this is part of the deal with the EU (that was predominantly economic) that Yanukovich put on hold in November, which resulted in mass bloody unrest and his ousting.
In Lavrov’s view, the coup-installed authorities in Kiev should have waited until a legitimate government was formed in the country after elections, and should have only then decided whether to sign an agreement with Brussels.
“Presidential elections were announced for the end May rather than December as it had been agreed upon in the February 21 accords. A constitutional reform should be carried out before the vote,” he said. “Perhaps, it would be right from all points of view, I would say it would be more ethical towards [Ukrainian] people to wait for a more legitimate situation in Kiev, and within the Ukrainian leadership before signing any agreements on behalf of their state.”
At The Hague, Lavrov met for the first time with Ukraine’s acting Foreign Minister Andrey Deshchitsa.
The tete-a-tete was initiated by the Ukrainian side.
“I told him how we see the steps that officials appointed by the Verkhovna Rada (the parliament) should take in order to finally establish normal nationwide dialogue,” Lavrov said.
Ahead of the meeting, Deshchytsa told journalists that he was hoping to discuss with Lavrov peaceful ways of settling the existing situation between Moscow and Kiev.
Relations between the two neighboring states - former Soviet republics - sharply deteriorated after the February military coup which brought ultra-nationalists to power in Kiev and split the country with eastern regions of Ukraine strongly opposing the new leadership and western regions of the country supporting it.
The Autonomous Republic of Crimea – home to an ethnic Russian majority – refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new government which they feared would not respect their rights. In a move that proved Crimeans’ concerns, parliament voted to revoke the law that allowed regions to give Russian and other minority languages the status of a second official language.
Crimea held a referendum on March 16 where over 96 percent of voters decided to rejoin Russia rather than remain part of Ukraine. On March 21, Crimea and the city of Sevastopol officially became part of Russia - or rather “retuned home,” as many Crimeans say. The region was transferred from Russia to Ukraine in 1954 by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev without consent of its population.
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Edited by WD
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