Ukraine to break off diplomatic relations with Syria due to recognition of “LDNR”
Ukraine will sever diplomatic relations with Syria, impose a trade embargo and impose sanctions. Such measures due to the recognition of the independence of the so-called “DPR” and “LPR” were announced in the Foreign Ministry. – In response to this unfriendly act, Ukraine announces the severance of diplomatic relations with Syria without severing consular relations in accordance with Article 2 of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The Ukrainian side is also starting the procedure for imposing a trade embargo on Syria, as well as imposing other sanctions on Syrian legal entities and individuals, says a statement published on the ministry’s website on June 30. Recognition of the “independence” of ORDLO in The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was called an unfriendly act, an encroachment on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, a gross violation of Ukrainian legislation and the UN Charter. “We have no doubt that the Syrian regime is trying to give pseudo-subjectivity to the Russian occupation administrations in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions on the order of its curators in the Kremlin,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry added. Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said that Ukraine is reacting as harshly as possible to any attempts to undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country and protects national interests by all available means, including on the diplomatic front. The Foreign Ministry noted that back in 2016, Ukraine closed the embassy in Damascus, and in 2018 ordered the closure of the Syrian embassy in Kyiv. The reason was the crimes of the Bashar al-Assad regime against the Syrian people. Now the embassy in Lebanon is dealing with the issues of Ukrainians in Syria. On June 29, the Syrian state agency SANA announced the decision of Syria to recognize the independence of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a traditional evening address on the same day, said that Ukraine would have no relations with Syria. He said that Russia squeezed such a decision out of Syria and called it an insignificant story. On June 16, the leader of the so-called “LPR” Leonid Pasechnik said that Syria and “a number of other countries” are ready to recognize the “independence” of those occupied by Russia territories of Donbass. Russia recognized the illegal “republics” in the occupied territory of Ukraine on February 21. In addition to Russia and Syria, the so-called “DPR” and “LPR” recognized the unrecognized South Ossetia (in 2014) and Abkhazia (in 2022).
