Russias Oslo Embassy threatens Norway

[sunonmars]

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/life-and-public/2017/02/russias-oslo-embassy-norways-selective-approach-cooperation-not-tenable#.WKmrKywk__9.twitter

On Friday, the Russian Embassy sent an e-mail to the Barents Observer and several other media accusing Norway of biased and anti-Russian rhetoric striving to achieve a return to the times of the Cold War.

The Embassy makes it clear that cooperation is not like a sandwich menu where Norway can choose to eat the toppings and throw away the bread. Cooperation means mutual respect for each other’s interests.

The last two weeks have not been a «highlight» in Norwegian, Russian relations. Two Parliament members were denied visa to Russia; the Police Security Service says Russian intelligence are targeting individuals in Norway; and hints Russian hackers could be behind an attempted digital attack on the Labour’s parliamentary group; the military intelligence warned of increased threats from Russia, and the Russian navy was not very happy when a Norwegian frigate and a coast guard vessel shadowed the Kuznetsov carrier group on northbound voyage along the coast of Norway after months of warfare mission in the waters outside Syria.

The 3-page long e-mail from Press-Attache Maxim Gurov lists most things that have gone wrong in east-west relations the last two decades. From NATO’s bombings in Yugoslavia in 1999, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the support to Georgia’s «military fairytale politics» in 2008, the attack on Libya in 2011 and the «systematic support to the russophobic nationalists in Ukraine.»

It is, however, the Embassy’s wording about bilateral Norwegian, Russian relations that signals an escalation of the disagreements between the two countries.

The Embassy says it is no longer tenable that Norway can chose on which topics cooperation with Russia shall include.

«Norway’s proposed selective approach - «cooperating on this, not cooperating on that» is untenable. Biased and far from reality anti-Russian rhetoric, voiced by our Norwegian partners, ignoring our interests will inevitably affect all areas of cooperation, contrary to the needs required to form a climate for building a positive agenda for bilateral affairs,» the Embassy writes.

«Our cooperation can not only include topics that the Norwegian part constantly refers to, like fisheries, environmental protection, nuclear and radiation safety, search and rescue. Of course is deserves more.»

Last week, Norway’s Foreign Minister Børge Brende, speaking at the Kirkenes conference, said relations up north are good and that most Norwegian, Russian bilateral cooperation in areas like fishery, nuclear safety, people-to-people contacts, border cooperation, search- and rescue continue as normal despite more tensions in east-west geopolitics.

It is up to Norway to improve the bilateral relations, the Russian Embassy says.

.......................

If anyone is still in any doubt as to what Russia is up to in the world, read this.......The world needs to shun Russia completely. The Govt is basically a state run terror operation.

The world is a mess and we have a russian spy sitting in the WH......

[CincyDem]

1. "A gang with a gas station"

That's how Condi Rice described Putin and Russia 4-5 years ago at a financial industry conference I attended. Her message - Russia's actions always come back to managing the price of oil.

At that time, I think oil was around $100 bucks a barrel. In her opinion, Russia could tolerate 70 bucks a barrel but below that, things were going to get tough. She hypothesized that in a sub-70 oil environment, Russia would get more desperate, being more open about their agenda and taking bolder action to recapitalize their operation.

Since then, the price of oil has dropped through 70 in November 2014, bottomed at 30 in Jan 2016 and has recovered to around 53.

At some point, it'll be interesting to see an overlay of the Russian program timeline to elect Trump with the price of oil. Superficially, it looks like Rice may have been right.

[2naSalit]

2. All the more reason

to transform our energy sources and other shifts we need to make. And soon.

[cheyanne]

3. The final goal of Putin is to get sanction lifted for the Exxon deal for oil started again.

It will pour billions of $$ into Russia. The annexation of the Crimea gave Russia a port to ship the oil without going through the Ukraine which heavily taxed . . .it just needs to get the sanctions lifted to do a deal with Exxon.

Norway also has nice ports . . .