Kiev refuses to accept credentials of Russian ambassador

YEREVAN, JANUARY 25, ARMENPRESS. Moscow “will have to postpone the arrival of Russian ambassador Mikhail Zurabov to Kiev, or he will have to work for one or two months as a special representative of the Russian president on the development of trade and economic relations, without the status of the head of the diplomatic mission,” the Kommersant-Ukraina newspaper wrote on Friday with reference to Andrei Goncharuk, head of the secretariat of the Ukrainian president. “Aside from the Vienna convention, there are traditions and the established practices of bilateral relations. All the four previous ambassadors of Russia to Ukraine brought credentials with the name of the Ukrainian president on them. We do not see any reason for changing those practices,” Goncharuk believes, news agencies report.

Officials from Viktor Yushchenko’s secretariat say that Kiev will refuse to accredit Zurabov, if the name of the incumbent president of Ukraine is not given in his credentials, the newspaper continued.

According to the Kommersant-Ukraina, “Kiev will not permit such a gross violation of the procedure. The credentials should be made in accordance with all the traditions, and Zurabov should go through the whole procedure. If he is going to present a copy of the credentials to Foreign Minister Peter Poroshenko, he should also meet President Viktor Yushchenko and should present the original of the credentials to him. Otherwise we shall insist that the first part of the procedure – the presentation of the copy of the credential and the accreditation of the ambassador – should not take place either.”

Vsevolod Loskutov, charge d’affairs ad interim of Russia in Ukraine, reported recently that Zurabov would come to Kiev before the second round of the presidential elections.