Friday, March 07, 2014

"I’m afraid that rather than pick up on the opportunity offered by President Putin standing down, Kerry’s just escalating."

The Voice of Russia's Brendan Cole hosts (link is audio and text) a discussion on the Ukraine.  Among the panelist is  Francis A. Boyle, an attorney and a professor of international law.  He's also the author of many books including, most recently, United Ireland, Human Rights and International Law.   Excerpt of Boyle's remarks:

“I’m afraid that what we’re seeing is an escalation of the crisis by the United States government. President Putin ordered the 150,000 troops right off the border of Ukraine on war manoeuvres to stand down. I thought that was a positive sign and yet immediately NATO responded by deploying new forces to Russia and the Baltics despite the fact there’s no threat to Russia and the Baltics. Now as we’re seeing today – these new sanctions. I’m afraid that rather than pick up on the opportunity offered by President Putin standing down, Kerry’s just escalating.”

“That meeting he had with Foreign Minister Lavrov, he brought along Arseniy Yatsenyuk, but Lavrov made it very clear that he did not consider him to be democratically elected at all and he wasn’t going to meet with him. I think if Kerry were serious, he would go to Moscow and meet with President Putin and attempt to negotiate a way out of here.”

“I don’t believe that at this point in time Russia should annex Crimea. It would only exacerbate the situation. I do have to say that under the relevant standard of international law given what’s going on here, certainly under the Declaration on Principles of International Law and the Advisory Opinion of the World Court on Kosovo’s declaration of independence, the people of Crimea have a right to secede if they want to and I’m not saying they should. But even if they vote in this upcoming referendum, I would think the prudent thing to do for the Russian parliament is to sit on it and not do anything right now, and see if we can negotiate a way out of this dilemma.”