Russia has counterclaims against Netherlands in Arctic Sunrise incident
MOSCOW. Nov 8 (Interfax) - The Netherlands shares some liability for the Greenpeace Arctic Sunrise incident and Russia has counterclaims against The Hague in this connection, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told a press briefing in Moscow on Friday.
"Russia has counterclaims against the Netherlands in relation to this incident. To a considerable degree, the situation resulted from the inactivity of the Netherlands as the state of the flag: it was known that the ship purposefully came to the Russian economic zone with an intention to commit illegal actions," Lukashevich said.
In his words, a Russian court will make a decision with regard to the ship and the persons who were traveling on it.
The Arctic Sunrise vessel of the Greenpeace international nature conservancy organization was detained in the Pechora Sea on September 19 for an attempt to stage a protest against the drilling done by the Prirazlomnaya oil platform.
The coast guard escorted the Arctic Sunrise to Murmansk on September 24. It had a multinational crew of 30, including four Russians. All were arrested and charged with piracy.
Russian Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said on October 22 that the piracy counts had been changed to hooliganism.
