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Sunday April 01, 2018
Kaieteur News
UK-Russia standoff deepens as Moscow cuts UK diplomats MOSCOW (Reuters) Moscow has told Britain it must cut just over 50 more of its diplomatic and technical staff in Russia in a worsening standoff over the poisoning of a Russian former spy and his daughter in England, the Russian Foreign Ministry said yesterday. Separately, Moscow also demanded an official explanation for the search of a Russian passenger plane in London, saying it could reserve the right to act similarly against British airlines in Russia. Britain said the search was routine. More than 100 Russian diplomats have been expelled by various countries, including 23 from Britain itself, to punish the Kremlin over the March 4 attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the historic English city of Salisbury.London says Moscow was responsible for poisoning the Skripals in the first known use of a military-grade nerve agent on European soil since World War Two. Russia flatly denies that and has cast the allegations as part of an elaborate Western plot to sabotage East-West relations and isolate Moscow. Russia had already retaliated in kind by ejecting 23 British diplomats. On Friday, the Foreign Ministry summoned British Ambassador Laurie Bristow and told him London had one month to further cut its diplomatic contingent in Russia to the same size as the Russian mission in Britain. It also expelled 59 diplomats from 23 other countries for backing Britain.
Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, were poisoned by a nerve agent called Novichok A spokeswoman for Britain’s Foreign Office called the Russian move regrettable, and said it was considering the implications of the measures. It did not say how many diplomatic staff in Russia would be affected, while the British Embassy in Moscow says it does not make staff numbers public. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Reuters the demand meant Britain would have to cut “a little over 50” more of its diplomatic and technical staff in Russia on top of the 23 diplomats who have already gone home. “We asked for parity. The Brits have 50 diplomats more than the Russians,” Zakharova said yesterday. Asked if that meant London would now have to cut exactly 50 diplomatic and technical staff, she said: “A little over 50.”The Russian Foreign Ministry later published a list of 14 questions its London embassy sent Britain’s Foreign Office about the case yesterday. It included queries
about why Russia had not been granted the right to provide the Skripals with consu-
lar assistance following the incident and about France’s role in the investigation. Russia’s Ministry of Transport meanwhile demanded Britain explains why the Aeroflot passenger plane was searched at Heathrow airport on Friday, in what the Russian Embassy in London called a “blatant provocation”. “After the search was over, the British officers refused to provide any written document that would specify the reasons for their actions, their legal foundation and their outcome,” the embassy said, concluding that the ac-
tion was “connected with the hostile policy” of the British government towards Russia. “It is routine for (Britain’s border agency) to search aircraft to protect the UK from organised crime and from those who attempt to bring harmful substances like drugs or firearms into the country,” Security Minister Ben Wallace said in a written statement.“Once these checks were carried out, the plane was allowed to carry on with its onward journey.” Britain’s Foreign Office also said yesterday it was considering allowing visits under consular access terms
to Yulia Skripal, who is recovering in hospital against all expectations and is no longer in critical condition. Russia’s embassy said that it had contacted Viktoria Skripal, Yulia’s cousin. “Upon receiving confirmation that Yulia Skripal’s condition is getting better and she is able to communicate, she said she would like to go to London and to visit her cousin,” the embassy said. The BBC reported on Friday that Yulia was “conscious and talking,” a factor which may influence the investigation of how she and her father were poisoned.
Nobel winner Malala visits hometown in Pakistan for first time since shooting MINGORA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai visited her birthplace in Pakistan’s Swat Valley yesterday, bursting into tears as she entered her childhood home for the first time since a Taliban gunman shot her in 2012. The 20-year-old told a family friend she planned to return home after completing her education at Oxford, where she is reading for a degree in politics, philosophy and economics. Roads were blocked off in the town of Mingora as Yousafzai, known universally by her first name, flew in by military helicopter with her parents and brother. Security was tight around her former home, now rented by a family friend, Farid-ulHaq Haqqani, who has kept the young woman’s room intact with her books, school trophies and luggage. “They were weeping. They were kneeling on the ground. They were touching the mud with their eyes,” Haqqani said of Malala and her family. He agreed to be interviewed inside the family home and pointed out a shelf in her room with books including Shakespeare’s “Comedy of Errors” and “Romeo and Juliet” as well as a copy of the television series “Ugly Betty”. “I asked her when are you permanently coming back and she said ‘God willing, when my education is completed, I will God willing come back to Pakistan.’” He added that Malala chatted in her room with four friends from her school days in Swat, while her parents greeted neighbours who dropped by - since the security detail would not allow her to go to other houses or even up on the roof of her home.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai (R-front) sits with her family and Pakistan Minister of State for Information and Broad casting Marriyum Aurangzeb (L-back) while visiting her hometown Mingora in Swat Valley, Pakistan yesterday. REUTERS/Stringer Malala has been visiting Pakistan since Thursday, her first trip home since she was shot and airlifted abroad for treatment. The government and military have been providing security. It had been uncertain whether she would be able to visit Swat, a scenic mountain region parts of which spent nearly two years under the control of Pakistani Taliban militants and their harsh interpretation of Islamic law, due to continued concerns for her safety. “I miss everything about Pakistan ... from the rivers, the mountains, to even the dirty streets and the garbage around our house, and my friends and how we used to have gossip ...to how we used to fight with our neighbours,” Malala told Reuters in an interview on Friday. “I had never been so excited for anything. I’ve never been so happy before,” she said of returning to Pakistan. Two security officials told
Reuters the trip to Swat would likely be just for one day. Another family friend, Jawad Iqbal Yousafzai, who is from the same Pashtun clan as Malala, said the family also visited a local army cadet college.The Pakistani army wrested control of Swat back from the Taliban in 2009 and the area remains mostly peaceful, but the militants still occasionally launch attacks, including one on the military a few weeks ago.The Taliban claimed responsibility in 2012 for the attack on Yousafzai for her outspoken advocacy for girls’ education, which was forbidden under the militants’ rule over Swat. She wrote an anonymous blog for the BBC Urdu service as a schoolgirl during the Taliban rule and later became outspoken in advocating more educational opportunities for girls. In 2014, Malala became the youngest Nobel laureate, honoured for her work with the Malala Foundation, a char-
ity she set up to support education advocacy groups with a focus on Pakistan, Nigeria, Jordan, Syria and Kenya. This month, a new girls’ school built with her Nobel prize money opened in the village of Shangla in Swat Valley. “The people of Swat and the whole of Pakistan are with Malala,” Jawad Iqbal Yousafzai said. “God willing, we will counter the terrorism and extremism in our region with the weapon of education, with the weapon of a pen, with the weapons of teachers and with the weapons of books.” Haqqani said Malala and her brother requested to be sent dried plums from a tree in the garden once they were harvested. The family visit lasted about 90 minutes, he said. “They were leaving the house slowly. They were dragging their feet. They were coming back inside again and again,” he said.