The Brics Post, June 4, 2014
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| Two security guards pass the entrance of the European Council building in Brussels ahead of a two-day G7 meeting, Wednesday, June 4, 2014 [AP] |
Russia said
Wednesday that it was open for cooperation with major Western powers, but ruled
out a return to the Group of Eight (G8), made up of the seven most
industrialized nations, known as G7, and Russia.
“Such a
format does not exist for now,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told a
Russian radio station.
Russia
would, however, continue to participate in the Group of 20, which includes the
most developed and major developing countries of the world, Peskov said.
Leaders of
G7 declared in March that they would boycott the G8 summit in Sochi, where they
were scheduled to have met with Russia this week. Instead, they gathered in
Brussels for a two-day G7 summit.
The
expulsion of Russia from the G8 came three days after Crimea accession to
Russia.
Peskov said
Russian President Vladimir Putin will not have a bilateral meeting with US
President Barack Obama even though both leaders are attending the 70th
anniversary of D-Day Landings in France’s Normandy on Friday.
“We are not
making such preparations … Participants of war memorial events will stay
together, in one group,” Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as saying.
He,
however, did not rule out possible brief talks between Putin and Ukrainian
President-elect Petro Poroshenko.
The Kremlin
earlier confirmed that Putin, on his first visit to a Western country since the
start of the Ukraine crisis, would have separate meetings with British Prime
Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Normandy.
The US and
EU have imposed travel bans and asset freezes on dozens of Russians over what
they called Russia’s “meddling” in Ukraine’s affairs.
The
European Union, however, would be troubled by Russia’s attempts to veer away
from gas exports to the bloc by moving towards energy-hungry China.
Russia has
had some success in diverting attention away from the troubling sanctions with
the successful negotiations that led to the inking of a massive $400 billion
gas deal with China last month and also the signing of the treaty to form the
Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) with Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, a combined
$2.7 trillion economy and vast energy resources.
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