ZAGREB, March 27, 2018 – Slovenia hasn’t decided to expel any Russian diplomats following the Salisbury case, Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec said, while Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Foreign Minister Igor Crnadak told the Klix web portal that his country would not join other Western countries in expelling Russian diplomats due to the poisoning of a Russian spy in Great Britain.
Slovenian media reported on Monday that Slovenia, Slovakia and Austria were not among the 14 EU member states that had decided on Monday to expel a certain number of Russian diplomats and declare them personae non grata in response to the alleged involvement of Russian authorities in the nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy and his daughter in the UK.
“It is still too early to say how Slovenia will act in this case. We will adhere to the stance adopted at the recent meeting of the European Council that it is necessary to determine what happened in fact,” Erjavec said. The government will discuss this issue at its next regular meeting on Thursday, he added.
At the meeting in Brussels last Friday, when British Prime Minister Theresa May called on European allies to stand against Russia, Slovenia’s PM Miro Cerar condemned the use of chemical agents as a weapon, but expressed scepticism with regard to imposing new sanctions on Russia.
On the other hand, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Foreign Minister Igor Crnadak on Tuesday expressed concern over the use of chemical weaponry in Europe. “We certainly won’t be undertaking any activities like expelling diplomats,” he said. He explained that institutions in the country were closely following this case, adding that they had not received any official demands for sanctions.
Crnadak noted that not all EU member states were united in the decision to expel Russian diplomats.
