MOSCOW, October 19. /TASS/. Russia will do nothing that could harm its interests in order to get the western sanctions lifted, Sergey Ivanov, the chief of Russia’s presidential staff, said in an exclusive interview with TASS.
"We will never do anything to harm our national interests just for the sake of seeing the sanctions lifted. Never ever! It was not us who took those measures, and we are not going to discuss in any format what is necessary for canceling them," Ivanov said.
He said the lifting of anti-Russia sanctions should not be linked with the restoration of peace in Ukraine.
"I would avoid any linkage here. Are you certain that the sanctions will be lifted from us even after impeccable compliance with Minsk-2? Are there any guarantees? Personally, I have big doubts on that score. There is no reason why we should offer excuses or ask for forgiveness," Ivanov said.
He admitted that "the financial and economic situation in the country is really grave."
"The sanctions did cause certain losses. The GDP is on the decline, and not on the ascent. We don't deny that. But! The root cause for the Russian economy's slowdown is not sanctions, but the fall in the world prices of oil and gas," he said.
"I agree that this has demonstrated again our strong dependence on hydrocarbons and how very bad this is. But on the other hand, we've been able to realize the vector of future action to be taken to ease the pressures of the raw materials factor," Ivanov added.
{{item.group_date}}
Показать еще
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at http://ift.tt/jcXqJW.
No comments :
Post a Comment