Canada's decision on anti-Russian sanctions aimed at satisfying Russophobic lobby - Russian Embassy in Ottawa
NEW YORK. Nov 4 (Interfax) - Canadian sanctions against Russia are pointless and improper, Kirill Kalinin, the spokesperson for the Russian Embassy in Ottawa, said.
"Canada's decision to impose anti-Russian sanctions under the false pretence of hypocritically advancing human rights is absolutely pointless and improper," Kalinin said in a commentary.
"[Canada's] decision to isolate itself from one of the world's key power in order to satisfy the Russophobic lobby [...] returns the Canadian foreign policy to the narrow black-and-white world view, which contradicts modern geopolitics," he said.
"In case of new sanctions, a response will be immediate and reciprocal," Kalinin said.
The Canadian authorities made a decision earlier to impose sanctions on 52 foreign citizens, including 30 Russians, the Canadian government said in a statement on Friday. "The sanctions target individuals who are, in the opinion of the Government of Canada, responsible for, or complicit in, gross violations of internationally recognized human rights or acts of significant corruption," the statement said.
The Russian authorities, for their part, banned a number of Canadians from entering the country in response to new anti-Russian sanctions. "We have to give a tit-for-tat response. A decision to ban a number of Canadian public figures from entering the Russian Federation was adopted on the basis of the reciprocity principle. The list is long, it includes dozens of names. Those are the Russophobic Canadian citizens, who have been systematically working on destruction of bilateral relations," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.