MOSCOW, November 8 (RIA Novosti) – The arrival of the Dutch king in Moscow on Friday did not deter Russia from criticizing the Netherlands over a Greenpeace ship seized in the Arctic waters earlier this year.
A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman suggested the Netherlands should not have allowed the Greenpeace icebreaker the Arctic Sunrise, registered in the Netherlands, to set sail for a protest in September against drilling in the Arctic. All 30 people on board the Arctic Sunrise were detained by Russian authorities after activists attempted to scale the rig, which belongs to state-owned gas giant Gazprom.
“Russia has counter complaints against The Hague in connection with this incident. The current situation has, to a significant extent, been caused by Dutch negligence,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said at a briefing in Moscow on Friday.
“It was known that the ship arrived in Russia’s economic zone with the intention of committing a crime,” he said.
The Dutch government has taken the Arctic Sunrise case to an international tribunal, demanding Russia release both the ship and its multinational crew, who have all been charged with hooliganism. Russia has refused to participate in the arbitration process.
In a long-planned event as part of a year dedicated to celebrating Dutch-Russian ties, Dutch King Willem-Alexander arrived in Moscow on Friday for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
On Saturday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is due to meet with his Dutch counterpart Frans Timmermans, who is accompanying the monarch and queen consort on their visit to Moscow.
Relations between Russia and the Netherlands have appeared to deteriorate in the wake of the dispute over the Arctic Sunrise.
The Netherlands apologized to Russia after the brief detention of a Russian diplomat in The Hague in October that was quickly followed by an apparently homophobic attack on a Dutch diplomat in his apartment in Moscow.
Earlier this year the mayor of Amsterdam declined to meet with Putin during an official Russian visit to the Netherlands, citing his opposition to Russian anti-gay propaganda legislation. Russia declined to issue visas to two Dutch journalists working on reports about the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi in September.
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