Oleksandar Levchenko, Ukraine’s ambassador to BiH, believes that calls to ban the import of weapons “to regions in which armed conflicts are ongoing” do not hold water, and that BiH would export weapons not to the Donbas region, where conflict is underway, but to the state of Ukraine.
Damage to budget
“Ukraine, as opposed to Russia, is not under international sanctions, and anyone who wishes to do business with it can do so freely,” said Levchenko in a statement, reacting to a statement by Petar Ivancov, Russia’s ambassador to BiH, that the resignation of Boris Tucic, BiH’s minister of foreign trade and economic relations, was a moral act.
Levchenko said that any export of weapons has at least three aspects – the legal and political, the moral, and the financial, but that Ivancov circumvents the last one – to the tune of €5 million for BiH’s budget.
He believes that from a moral standpoint, Ivancov’s statements appear “especially cynical,” recalling the suffering of people from, as he said, Russian weapons at the hands of pro-Russian units.
Sudden moral
The Ukrainian ambassador says that Russia “entered occupied parts of Ukraine with thousands of its troops, flew in hundreds of tanks, armored cars, cannons, defensive rocket systems, and numerous other weapons,” but when BiH wants to sell Ukraine some munitions – “officially Moscow suddenly takes a moral stance.”
Petar Ivancov, Russia’s ambassador to BiH, earlier told Srna that Russia highly values the move by Minister Tucic, who submitted his resignation in order to prevent the export of munitions to Ukraine, in light of the fact that realization of such an export would negatively influence the peace process.
He noted that the issue of arms and munitions exports is complex, and that his country does not oppose legal export regulated by an entire series of processes, agreements, and accords.
“In this concrete case, this is about export of munitions to an area undergoing armed conflict. According to the criteria of the European Union from 2008, which prescribes conditions for procurement of weapons and munitions, export to regions in which armed conflict is underway is prohibited, because the situation is so additionally complicated,” said the Russian ambassador.
(Source: Oslobodjenje)
