'Ireland will stand by its allies' - Taoiseach responds to criticism that assessing Russian ambass.

[OnDoutside]

'Ireland will stand by its allies' - Taoiseach responds to criticism that assessing Russian ambassadors is 'unfriendly action'

Ireland is standing by our EU allies by embarking on a detailed security assessment of unauthorised Russian agents here, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said.



Russian Ambassador to Ireland Yury Filatov warned that any effort to expel diplomats would be seen as an "unfriendly action" but Taoiseach Varadkar said Ireland must stand by our EU allies as the fallout from the nerve agent attack in England continues.
Speaking in Brussels, Mr Varadkar said: "We’re part of a European Union which has 28 member states in it. "Other member states are sometimes subject to attack; we saw a terrible attack today in France and last week an attempted assassination using a chemical agent occurred in England.

"Part of the European Union and part of European solidarity is the 28 of us standing together; so if an unfriendly act is perpetrated on one European country; other European countries will stand together and stand by our allies and that’s what we would expect for us and it’s what we will do for other countries."

snip

"What we will now consider in the coming days is to whether we want to take individual action relating to Russian diplomats in Ireland, bearing in mind that what the UK did was to expel 23 diplomats who they believed, were not actually diplomats, were agents," he said. "So we would have to do a security assessment just like they did before that, we are not going to randomly expel people who are genuine diplomats. "A security assessment will be done. The minister for Foreign Affairs Tanaiste (Simon Coveney) and I already spoke about this, in the coming days so we will make that decision I would say the early part of next week."

snip

Foreign affairs minister Simon Coveney outlined the next steps for the Government. "The UK is Ireland’s closest neighbour and friend and we are in complete solidarity with the British government as they deal with the circumstances and consequences of this appalling attack," Mr Coveney said. "Ireland shares the UK and European Council assessment that it is highly likely that the Russian Federation is responsible and that there is no plausible alternative explanation. The use of chemical weapons in any circumstances is completely unacceptable.

more : https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/ireland-will-stand-by-its-allies-taoiseach-responds-to-criticism-that-assessing-russian-ambassadors-is-unfriendly-action-36735761.html

[Tatiana]

1. Nice job, Ireland.

And that's what we need to do. All democratic nations need to isolate Putin.

[Maeve]

2. And Russia poinoning people is NOT an 'unfriendly action'?

Maith thu, a Taoiseach!

[H2O Man]

3. Recommended.

It's my island. But -- I'm not on my island.

[Sanity Claws]

4. Ireland is not a member of NATO

so this is especially important, IMO.

[OnDoutside]

5. I think that as a member of the EU, it's vital we stick together and lead the fight against Putin.

Of course because the British gave us intel on this, the usual assholes are moaning about it.

[Sanity Claws]

6. Who are the usual assholes?

I see that you live in Ireland so you can give us an insider's view that we generally don't see. Is it Fianna Fail? Or isolated individuals who are griping about it?

[OnDoutside]

7. They're usually the ones who rush to the media to complain that the government are railroading

us into NATO, or some European Army, which is nonsense. It's usually the far left, or Sinn Fein (if there's any suggestion of co-operating with the British). Now, of course the Irish Army Generals would love nothing better than to get the country involved in NATO or whatever but there is a sense in Ireland that we are proud of our military commitment as peacekeepers under the United Nations flag, and we are too small to make a difference militarily, from a financial point of view. Our army is about 10,000, the navy is mostly comprised of 1,000 personnel with 8 ships mostly employed in fishery protection. The Irish Airforce is similarly ill-equipped (we depend on the RAF, if truth be told).

What I think there is a crying need for, is a European Coast Guard, along the lines of what you have in the US. I think there could be a well argued case here that would get a lot of support here in Ireland.

One thing i would say is that we don't have much of a far right here in Ireland, thankfully. Fianna Fail and Fine Gael would at best be described as centre right parties (though largely to the left of the Democratic Party) and they were adversaries over the last 90 years in what was called "civil war politics", which stunted the growth of proper Left-Right politics. Parties of the left always are quick to accuse FF & FG of being right wing, but in reality 90% of politics in Ireland is centrist. Even the once 32 County Socialist Republic Sein Fein now have moved towards the centre in order chase the votes, though there is still a lot of distrust of their true thoughts on this.

[Sanity Claws]

8. Thanks for the primer on Irish politics

I can't imagine people would want to give up Ireland's role as UN peacekeepers and become NATO members. Ireland plays an important role without NATO.

[OnDoutside]

9. Yes, I agree, and I think generally the Irish people feel that way too. We're not viewed as

colonialists, so are usually well received on peace keeping missions.

[Cha]

10. Go raibh maith agat, Ireland!

Erin go bragh!

Mahalo, OnDoutside