{"id":1900,"date":"2014-03-05T13:04:54","date_gmt":"2014-03-05T13:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.egeve.com\/up\/wordpress\/2014\/03\/05\/uk-says-options-remain-open-on-russia-after-document-leak\/"},"modified":"2022-10-29T17:57:26","modified_gmt":"2022-10-29T16:57:26","slug":"uk-says-options-remain-open-on-russia-after-document-leak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.egeve.com\/en\/uk-says-options-remain-open-on-russia-after-document-leak\/","title":{"rendered":"UK says options remain \u2018open\u2019 on Russia after document leak"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Britain will not impose sanctions or support military action against Russia, according to a briefing paper that was revealed in error on Monday. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div>\n<p><strong>The document became public when one of David Cameron\u2019s advisers left it on display to press photographers before a Downing Street meeting.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div>\n<p><strong>The blunder by Hugh Powell, who is deputy national security adviser, also shows that the Government has no plans to freeze Russian investors out of the City of London.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div>\n<p><strong>Instead, the briefing paper recommends that the UN should take the lead and possibly send monitors to Ukraine. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><\/p><wp-block data-block=\"core\/more\"><\/wp-block>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>The document says: \u201cUK should not support for now, trade sanctions &#8230; or close London\u2019s financial centre to Russians.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>It also says that Britain should \u201cdiscourage any discussions [eg at Nato] of emergency military preparations\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Downing Street sources confirmed that the briefing document is official policy.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Foreign Secretary William Hague insisted Tuesday that Britain\u2019s options in dealing with Russia over the Ukrainian crisis remained open.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Speaking in the House of Commons, Hague did not deny the content of the briefing paper. But he insisted that Britain\u2019s options remained \u201cvery much open\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Hague told lawmakers that allowing the document to be photographed was \u201cabsolutely regrettable and should not happen\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Consequences and costs<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>But he rejected the claim by the opposition Labour party that the blunder risked compromising Britain\u2019s influence in the diplomatic discussions over Ukraine.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>\u201cAnything that is written in one document being carried by one official is not necessarily any guide to the decisions that will be made by Her Majesty\u2019s government. Our options remain very much open on this subject,\u201d he said.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>During a visit to Kiev on Monday, Hague warned Russia of the \u201cconsequences and costs\u201d of intervention in the ex-Soviet state but he and Cameron have yet to spell out what these might be.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Ministers fear that imposing trade restrictions or somehow excluding Russians from the financial markets in London will hurt economic growth and deter foreign investment.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>The capital is known as \u201cLondongrad\u201d due to the number of millionaire Russian oligarchs based here. A senior figure said: \u201cWe\u2019re trying to find ways of hurting Russia, not hurting ourselves.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Powell, who was at Eton with the Prime Minister, is the son of Margaret Thatcher\u2019s chief foreign policy adviser Charles Powell and nephew of Tony Blair\u2019s chief of staff Jonathan Powell.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>The document undermined claims by Cameron and William Hague that the UK was set to get tough with Russia.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Visiting the Ukrainian capital Kiev, the Foreign Secretary described the situation as the biggest crisis in Europe in the 21st century.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>He warned Russian president Vladimir Putin that he faces a \u201csignificant cost\u201d for taking control of the Ukrainian region.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>After chairing the National Security Council meeting, Cameron said a clear message needed to be \u201csent to the Russian government that continuing down this path of violating the sovereignty of another country will have costs and consequences\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>He added: \u201cWe shall have to bring to bear diplomatic, political, economic and other pressures.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>By contrast, US secretary of state John Kerry went much further, threatening to deny Russians in America access to their money. He said Putin \u201cmay find himself with asset freezes on Russian business. American business may pull back, there may be a further tumble of the rouble\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Suspend cooperation<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Last night EU foreign ministers, meeting in Brussels, agreed to suspend cooperation with Russia over the planned G8 summit in Putin\u2019s holiday home of Sochi in June.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<table style=\"height: 1px; width: 1px;\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<p><script><\/p>\n<p><\/script><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><strong>The EU will also suspend cooperation on visas and they warned that \u2018further sanctions\u2019 may be imposed after an emergency summit on Thursday. A Downing Street spokesman refused to discuss the leak. \u2018We never comment on security matters,\u2019 he said.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Labour MP Simon Danczuk called for Powell to resign, pointing out that Bob Quick \u2014 the former Scotland Yard head of counter-terrorism \u2014 was forced to quit in 2009 after a similar mistake.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>He said: \u201cIt\u2019s astonishing that the deputy national security adviser can\u2019t keep sensitive documents like this private. It\u2019s clearly a serious issue and needs to be addressed.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Tory MP Douglas Carswell added: \u201cI\u2019m surprised to hear that Inspector Clouseau is working in Downing Street. We have literally shown all our cards.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>One Government official indicated that a reprimand was on the cards for Powell.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><script><\/p>\n<p><\/script><br><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Britain will not impose sanctions or support military action against Russia, according to a briefing&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,21],"tags":[200,2383,2384,293,927,661,2381,1516,751,1774],"class_list":["post-1900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-ynews3","tag-after","tag-document","tag-leak","tag-on","tag-open","tag-options","tag-remain","tag-russia","tag-says","tag-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.egeve.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.egeve.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.egeve.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.egeve.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.egeve.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1900"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.egeve.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3483,"href":"https:\/\/www.egeve.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1900\/revisions\/3483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.egeve.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.egeve.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.egeve.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.egeve.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}