Washington D.C./12.04.23/Turan: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that Russia’s failure to grant consular access to wrongfully detained American reporter Evan Gershkovich “puts it, once again, in violation of international commitments it’s made," TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.
“I think it sends a very strong message to people around the world to beware of even setting foot there, lest they be arbitrarily detained,”Blinken said at a news conference at the US State Department.
He went on to elaborate: “I think Russia not following through on meeting its obligations to consular access, never mind the practice of detaining people arbitrarily for political purposes, is going to do even more damage to Russia's standing around the world — a standing that has been in free-fall, particularly since its reinvasion of Ukraine last year.”
Blinken noted that he had designated Gershkovich as wrongfully detained and reiterated that he called on Russia's Sergey Lavrov to immediately grant consular access and release the detained journalist.
Speaking to reporters while leaving for a trip to Ireland Tuesday morning, President Joe Biden also called Russian's detaining Gershkovich “totally illegal,”
“We’re making it real clear that it’s totally illegal what’s happening,” Biden said.
Blinken, in his turn, said the Administration is “engaged every single day in pressing for that access as well as pressing for Evan’s release.”
Alex Raufoglu
Politics
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Flightradar24, a Swedish online service providing real-time flight information, has published details about today’s AZAL plane crash in Aktau. Flightradar24 claims that the AZAL plane "was subject to GPS jamming and spoofing near the city of Grozny." This means the plane's navigation systems were targeted by an electronic attack.
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On Wednesday, at the meeting of the CIS leaders in Saint Petersburg, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed condolences following the crash of the plane in Aktau. "Unfortunately, I must say a few words about the tragedy that occurred today in Aktau. A plane crashed, there are fatalities, and many injured. As we were just discussing, I want to express, on your behalf, condolences to the families of the deceased and to all those affected. We hope for their recovery.
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In connection with the crash of the Embraer 190 passenger plane operating the Baku-Grozny flight, December 26 has been declared a day of mourning in Azerbaijan.
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Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev unexpectedly returned to Baku on Monday after being informed of the crash of an Azerbaijani flight near Aktau, Kazakhstan, en route to the informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in St. Petersburg.
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