MOSCOW, April 04. /ITAR-TASS/. Preparations for G8 Summit in Sochi suspended not at Russia's initiative, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said. "Crimean reality cannot be changed," he added.
“The preparation for the G8 summit in Sochi has been suspended, but not at our initiative,” the diplomat stressed. “It’s the United States and other Group of Eight members that withdrew from Russia’s presidency.” “It is clear that if the main event of the G8 year does not take place, we see little sense in holding others, although the Russian presidency program that at the turn of the current year had been approved by the colleagues in the G8 was rather ambitious,” the deputy minister said.
“Where the event format supposes the participation of not only G8 members, but also representatives of other countries, as well as international organisations, we will hold the events,” Ryabkov said. “But it should be understood that if the ‘intriguing’ attempts around our presidency status, attempts to de-facto push though alternative schemes of the organisation and holding of corresponding conferences, meetings and so on, continue, we will not appear at them.”
“It’s a pity of course that the colleagues in a number of capitals ‘under command’ from Washington have seriously damaged this time-tested and generally rather viable collective form of interaction on many important political and economic issues,” the diplomat continued. “However, we also see certain pluses in the current situation. One of them - the fast growing steady trend towards the formation of a truly multipolar world in which there is no place for the ‘commanders’ and ‘subordinates’, and where problem solution methods are worked out based only and exclusively on the true balance of interests.