Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Alexander Lukashevich said that the Eastern Partnership (EaP) initiative, launched by the EU in 2009 for Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, is “anti-Russian.”
Asked during a press conference in Moscow about upcoming EaP summit in Riga on May 21-22 and whether the EaP comes in conflict with the Russian interests, Lukashevich responded: “Russia has a very negative stance towards this.”
“We will be following how the Riga summit proceeds, but it is already obvious that our reaction will be quite tough and principled,” he said.
“We see where this ‘partnership’ is moving and what kind of coloring it is gaining taking into view position of participants of this program, first and foremost, of the European Union,” Lukashevich said.
“Let’s wait for its [summit] results. The essence of this ‘partnership’ definitely has an obviously expressed anti-Russian direction,” he added.
Latvian Foreign Minister, Edgars Rinkēvičs, whose country holds EU’s rotating presidency and will be hosting the EaP summit next month, responded on his Twitter:
Moscow sees Riga Eastern partnership summit as directed against it, they get it completely wrong, time to stop old fashioned thinking
— Edgars Rinkēvičs (@edgarsrinkevics) April 24, 2015
Georgian PM’s special representative for relations with Russia, Zurab Abashidze, said it’s “characteristic of our Russian colleagues” to view something they are not part of as being directed against them. He said that in 2009 when the EaP was launched, Russia was offered by the EU to cooperate, but Moscow declined.
“I think they are not right when making judgments before the summit is even held,” Abashidze told Rustavi 2 TV.
This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)