Category Archives: United Nations

European Union, Iran, NATO, Russia, United Nations, United States

Moscow says the United States should drop its European Missile Shield…

EUROPEAN MISSILE SHIELD

Russia has urged the United States to scrap plans to station parts of its European missile shield system now that Iran has reached agreement with world powers to limit its nuclear program.

Moscow has long opposed the plan, which it sees as a threat to its nuclear deterrence, and has pledged to retaliate if the missile shield in Europe goes ahead. Washington has previously assured Moscow the shield was meant as a protection from ‘rogue’ states like Iran, and not directed against Russia.

Since the agreement in July was made, under which Tehran has agreed to curb its nuclear program in exchange for an easing of UN, US and EU sanctions, Moscow has stepped up its rhetoric against the missile shield.

The latest diplomatic spat threatens to further worsen relations between Moscow and Washington, now at their lowest point since the cold war because of the conflict in Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said in the last few days that Barack Obama ‘was not telling the truth’ in comments he made in 2009 linking the need for a missile shield to what the president called the ‘real threat’ from Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile activity.

At the time of making those comments, Mr Obama said: ‘As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defence system that is cost-effective and proven. If the Iranian threat is eliminated, we will have a stronger basis for security, and the driving force for missile defence construction in Europe will be removed.’

Moscow insists those comments mean that with the resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue, Washington should now walk away from the missile shield plan.

However, sceptics in America (and elsewhere) will argue that even if the agreement was fully implemented it did not annul the threat from Iranian ballistic missiles that Mr Obama referred to back in 2009. Under the July deal, UN sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missiles program will stay in place for eight years.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Government, said: ‘As long as Iran goes on developing and deploying ballistic missiles, the U.S. together with its allies and partners will be working to ensure protection from this threat, including through deploying the NATO missile shield system.’

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has ruled out the possibility of using mid-range ballistic missiles with non-nuclear warheads to target Europe. Mr Ryabkov said: ‘So I conclude that the U.S. administration is artificially stitching arguments together behind a decision to continue and increase the pace of creating the European missile shield that was in fact taken for different reasons.’

If the shield goes ahead, Russia has said it would retaliate, including by deploying short-range Iskander ballistic missiles in its enclave of Kaliningrad, on the border with NATO members Poland and Lithuania.

Mr Ryabkov also said Russia and Iran had agreed on two bilateral deals as part of implementing the wider nuclear agreement, and were now discussing the details.

He said Russia would take in some 8 tonnes of low-enriched uranium from Iran in exchange for supplies of natural uranium. Moscow and Tehran would also produce medical isotopes at Iran’s Fordow uranium enrichment facility.

NATO is constructing a missile defence system in the Mediterranean Sea and in the territories of several European member states.

NATO is constructing a missile defence system in the Mediterranean Sea and in the territories of several European member states.

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Canada, Climate Change, Environment, Russia, United Nations, United States

Russia renews its claim on vast amounts of Arctic territory…

RUSSIA AND THE ARCTIC

In an application to the United Nations, Russia has renewed its claim on 436,000 square miles of Arctic territory. Russia’s previous claim was rejected in 2002 by a UN commission on the grounds of insufficient evidence.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry now says it has ‘ample scientific data collected in years of scientific research.’ The area which Russia claims extends 350 nautical miles from beyond its shoreline.

The move is likely to be diplomatically fraught as it seems certain to provoke the ire of other Arctic-bordering nations. The United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark also have territorial ambitions in the Arctic region and have rejected Russian claims to the area, which is thought to hold up to a quarter of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas reserves.

Reacting to Russia’s claim The Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade & Development, said: ‘All Arctic Ocean coastal states are committed to the orderly resolution of any overlaps of continental shelf and reaffirmed this commitment in the Ilulissat Declaration in May 2008.’

The declaration referred to by Canada was enacted to block any new comprehensive international legal regime to govern the Arctic Ocean, and contains an additional pledge and caveat for ‘the orderly settlement of any possible overlapping claims.’

There have been increasing rivalries in the region, exacerbated by climate change, as melting northern ice caps have allowed more opportunities for nations to explore and expand in contested areas.

These renewed territorial claims come in the midst of what has been described as the worst state of relations between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War, particularly with the ongoing conflict and tensions in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatist rebels and the pro-European Ukrainian government. NATO has openly accused Russia of actively sending troops to support the rebels.

Russia’s expansionist ambitions in the north are not new. In 2007, a Russian submarine dropped a canister containing a Russian flag on the ocean bed of the North Pole in what appeared to have been a provocative publicity stunt to rile its Arctic neighbours.

  • The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the treaty that delimits continental shelf claims, allows countries to claim an exclusive economic zone up to 200 miles from their coastline or as far as their land territory naturally extends from shore beneath the sea.
  • Russia is seeking to demonstrate that two underwater features, the Lomonosov Ridge and the Mendeleev ridge, are natural geological extensions of the Russian continental shelf.
  • Vladimir Putin has described the Arctic as a region of Russian “special interest,” and has expanded Russia’s military presence in the high north to secure its claims in the region.
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Climate Change, Economic, G7, Government, Politics, United Nations

G7 summit: The communiqué indicates an agreement in striving for a low carbon economy…

G7 SUMMIT

At the summit on June 8 the group of seven leaders agreed to wean their economies off carbon fuels and supported a global goal for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but they stopped short of agreeing their own immediate binding targets.

In a communiqué after their two-day summit in Bavaria, the G7 leaders endorsed the need for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions at the upper end, ranging from 40 to 70% by 2050 (and using 2010 as a basis). The range was recommended by the IPCC, the United Nations’ climate-change panel.

The leaders also backed a global target for limiting the rise in average global temperatures to two degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial levels.

The communiqué read: ‘We commit to doing our part to achieve a low-carbon global economy in the long-term, including developing and deploying innovative technologies striving for a transformation of the energy sectors by 2050, and invite all countries to join us in this endeavour.’

The G7 host, Angela Merkel of Germany, who was once dubbed the ‘climate chancellor’, had hoped to revitalise her environmental credentials by getting the G7 nations to agree specific emission goals ahead of the United Nations climate conference in Paris at the end of the year.

Whilst the leaders stopped short of agreeing any such immediate binding targets for their economies, green lobby groups nonetheless welcomed the direction of their agreements.

A statement given by WWF Global Climate and Energy Initiative, said: ‘They’ve given important political signals, but they could have done more, particularly by making concrete national commitments for immediate action… We had hoped for more commitments on what they would do right now.’

The Europeans had pressed their G7 partners to sign up to legally binding targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Russia Sanctions

A firm stance was taken on Russia and its involvement in the Ukraine conflict. Merkel said the G7 countries were ready, if necessary, to strengthen sanctions against Russia.

The leaders want Russia and Ukraine to comply with a February 12 ceasefire agreed in the Belarus capital Minsk that largely halted fighting in eastern Ukraine between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government forces.

Mrs Merkel said: ‘We are also ready, should the situation escalate, which we don’t want, to strengthen sanctions if the situation makes that necessary, but we believe we should do everything to move forward the political process of Minsk.’

The communiqué specifically addresses the issue, and the leaders said they expected Russia to stop its support for separatist forces in Ukraine and by implementing the Minsk agreements in full. The sanctions, they said, ‘can be rolled back when Russia meets these commitments.’

Greece

The Greek debt crisis was discussed by the leaders as a group and also in bilateral meetings during the summit at the foot of Germany’s highest mountain, the Zugspitze.

Mrs Merkel said there was not much time left for a debt deal to keep Greece in the Eurozone and that Europe was prepared to show solidarity if Athens implemented economic reforms:

‘We want Greece to remain part of the euro zone but we take the clear position that solidarity with Greece requires that Greece makes proposals and implements reforms.’

‘There isn’t much time left. Everyone is working intensively… Every day counts now,” Mrs Merkel said.

Greece’s leftist government last week rejected proposals for a cash-for-reforms deal put forward by European lenders and the International Monetary Fund, but has yet to put forward its own alternative to unlock aid funds that expire at the end of June.

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