Posted on 12/06/2011 4:45:12 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Russia downgrades relations with Qatar over attack on ambassador
Russia will downgrade its diplomatic relations with Qatar following an attack on the Russian ambassador by customs officers at Doha airport, the Foreign Ministry said on its website on Monday.
The ministry said Russian Ambassador Vladimir Titorenko will leave Qatar "after he finishes a course of medical treatment as a result of the attack" and Russia’s interests in Qatar will be temporarily represented by a charge d’affaires.
Airport security and customs officials beat up Titorenko and two other Russian diplomats on November 29 in an attempt to seize the diplomatic dispatch the ambassador was carrying on a return trip from Jordan.
The Qatari officials reportedly tried to X-ray the diplomatic mail despite a bilateral agreement allowing diplomats from both countries to carry diplomatic bags through customs without any inspection under the 1961 Vienna Convention.
The Russian Foreign Ministry sent a protest note to Qatari authorities on November 30, demanding “an immediate and full investigation into the incident, the strict punishment of the culprits and the prevention of similar incidents in the future.”
There has been no official response from Qatar so far.
An anonymous diplomatic source earlier told RIA Novosti that the incident had been most likely provoked by Russia’s position on the Syrian crisis, which many Qatari analysts believe advocates the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.
Qatar has been consistently supporting sanctions against the Syrian regime, while Russia stands against sanctioning Syria on all diplomatic levels, including the UN Security Council.
Qatar is about to find out that nobody messes with Russians.
Really? How so? Please explain.
Historically speaking, the Russians tend to retaliate quite brutally (but secretly) when their diplomats and or spooks are pushed around. Remember the old KGB? Well, it’s still around, just under a new name. The Qatari customs officials who roughed up the diplomat will probably disappear forever.
In 1985, terrorists in Lebanon kidnapped four Soviet diplomats. The KGB identified the terrorists, kidnapped some of their loved ones, and then began returning them in pieces. No more Soviet diplomats were kidnapped.
More recently, some Somali pirates waylaid a Russian vessel but got captured in the process. The pirates now reside in Davey Jones’ Locker.
A Soviet diplomatic school joke.
Students were tasked if they are an ambassadors to a given African nation. They have a “little incident” involving a Soviet navy conducting drills and eventually downing a civilian airliner killing all 250 on board off coast of their hosting nation. They have a note from a prime minister to reply.
Next day professor examined homeworks and didn’t like it.
He told ‘Folks, you did just great, but learn ‘screwyou’ is written separately as ‘screw you’, ‘ape’ is not starts with a capital letter and a N-word has double, not a single ‘g’ in the middle’.
A Soviet diplomatic school joke.
Students were tasked if they are an ambassadors to a given African nation. They have a “little incident” involving a Soviet navy conducting drills and eventually downing a civilian airliner killing all 250 on board off coast of their hosting nation. They have a note from a prime minister to reply.
Next day professor examined homeworks and didn’t like it.
He told ‘Folks, you did just great, but learn ‘screwyou’ is written separately as ‘screw you’, ‘ape’ is not starts with a capital letter and a N-word has double, not a single ‘g’ in the middle’.
And the United States tracked Imad Mughniya, author of the truck bombing of the US Marines in Lebanon until he was killed. And US Seals blew away Somali pirates. Does that make us a country, like the former Soviet Union and Putin’s Russia, that reacts to every insult by assassinating someone? My bet is that nothing will happen in Qatar. The Russians would have much to lose (in the Caucasus for one)by a retaliation in a state where both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Wahhabi movements are powerful and dislike for Russia is tangible.
We have more scruples than they do. If we were the Soviet Union, there would be no one languishing in Gitmo—they would be languishing in what Nikita Khrushchev called “the cold Soviet ground.”
The Russians bumped off a Chechen raghead in Qatar a few years ago. When the Qataris arrested a couple of Russian agents for it, the Russians arrested a bunch of Qatari athletes. The Qataris for all their bravado are a featherweight in the region and everyone knows that.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3852697.stm
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/03/02/2003100835
The next few Russian diplomatic pouches out of Qatar will have an amazing similarity to body bags. (And it’ll take two guys to carry them.)
Airport security and customs officials beat up Titorenko and two other Russian diplomats on November 29 in an attempt to seize the diplomatic dispatch the ambassador was carrying on a return trip from Jordan.Hey, when causing an international incident, FINISH THE JOB. "Attempt", what losers.
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