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Moscow says Riga Eastern Partnership summit lost opportunity to bridge gap on continent

The Russian Foreign Ministry called EU's position on Crimea inadequate
Russian Foreign Ministry building in Moscow ITAR-TASS/Gennadiy Khamelyanin
Russian Foreign Ministry building in Moscow
© ITAR-TASS/Gennadiy Khamelyanin

MOSCOW, May 22. /TASS/. The Eastern Partnership summit in Riga has once again lost an opportunity to make a step towards bridging a gap on the continent, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

The ministry said it had kept a close eye on the Riga summit. "Its results will be thoroughly analyzed from the point of view of fulfilling the European Commission’s pledged that this partnership is not aimed against Russia’s interests," the ministry said, adding that first conclusions had already been drawn.

"Despite the efforts of states that realize their responsibility for the fate of Europe, the Riga summit, under minute-serving tasks of certain participants, has lost another opportunity to make a step towards bridging a widening gap on the continent," the ministry said. "The final document actually reiterates all the stances advanced at the previous Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius."

"As a matter of fact, the Eastern Partnership remains an ideologized geopolitical project, the implementation of which is adversely impacted by certain European Union countries and their history-rooted anti-Russian complexes," the ministry underscored.

"The European Union once again muttered its inadequate position on Crimea," the ministry noted. "Some leaders of the European Union member states and representatives from Brussels will have to learn to respect the free choice and will of the people they are in the habit of dwelling on in other contexts."

The ministry noted attempts to explain all the problems of the Eastern Partnership and reasons why different countries, including European Union members, differed in their approaches to this project by Moscow’s "malicious designs." "The summit is new but the story is old," the ministry noted.

The Russian foreign ministry once against stressed it never called to question the right of every nation to strengthen relations with partners, including with the European Union. "But is should be done on an equal basis not speculating on the aspiration of interested countries for reforms and modernization, respecting historic ties and relations with neighbours," the ministry said.

"Being part and parcel of the European civilization, Russia believes that the identity of one or another nation with the European matrix is not dependent on any resolutions or recognitions, its recognition is an ongoing living process, it must bring all Europeans from Lisbon to Vladivostok closer together rather than divide us by a wrong question ‘whom are you with?,’" the ministry said. "We reiterate our readiness for constructive work with the European Union, member states of the Eurasian Economic Union and members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) with an aim of building a common economic and humanitarian space from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific on the basis of common indivisible security for all."