Congress ready to recognize Russia as sponsor of terrorism

Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi told Secretary of State Anthony Blinken that if the State Department refused, the US Congress would recognize Russia as a sponsor of terrorism. This was reported by the newspaper Politico, citing sources in Washington.

Pelosi said these words to Blinken in a phone call this week.

“Congress passage is clearly a harder road than a secretary’s decision, but it will give the administration the political cover needed to escalate economic pressure and anti-Putin rhetoric,” a congressional source told reporters.

He added that there is no legal basis to prevent members of Congress from making such a decision.

Inclusion of a country in the list of state sponsors of terrorism requires strict restrictions on interacting with it. Exports of defense goods are banned, control over the export of dual-use products is tightened, fiscal bans and other sanctions are imposed. Penalties may also be imposed on third countries that trade with a state sponsor of terrorism.

In December 1979, Syria was at the top of Washington’s “black list”. Iran joined in 1984, North Korea joined in November 2017, and Cuba in January 2021.

Secretary of State Blinken said in the spring that US authorities are examining the possibility of recognizing Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. According to him, “There is no doubt that the Russians are terrorizing the Ukrainians.”

However, he added that questions remain about the legal justification for such recognition. “Our legal counsel’s office is assessing whether there are legal criteria for considering Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism in the case with Ukraine. That’s being evaluated,” Blinken said.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow viewed Washington’s statements as a “propaganda movement”.

“Even if it is as stupid as this, all the measures they will take will be developed and continued. we definitely <...> “We don’t leave anything unanswered and they need to understand that,” he said.

Zakharova noted that the international community has so far not raised a global issue in the legal field about the US actions in Syria, Libya, Iraq and other countries. In his view, attempts by the United States to take unfriendly measures against Russia over alleged crimes against Ukrainians could “backfire” on Washington.

“The more the United States visualizes this issue in the minds of the international community, the more the international community remembers the crimes of the United States.”

On June 27, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video message that he asked the United States to recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. According to him, the relevant resolution has been approved by the US Senate committee and the State Department can make a legal decision.

“Such a decision is clearly necessary and should be supported by the entire democratic world. I explained this to the participants of the G7 summit in Germany,” he said.

Commenting on Zelensky’s call, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that investigators from Russia, the DPR and the LPR had prepared a set of evidence regarding acts of terrorism and genocide against the inhabitants of Ukraine’s Donbass.

“There are a lot of experts working, a huge amount of work. “The result of this work is intended to be conclusive evidence of acts bordering on terrorist acts, acts of genocide against the inhabitants of the aforementioned republics,” Peskov said. Said.

In his speech at the G7 summit in Germany, French President Emmanuel Macron did not support the intention of the US authorities to recognize the Russian Federation as a “sponsor of terrorism”.

“When it comes to qualifying as a sponsor of terrorism, I want to be understood correctly. “France does not share this methodology because we always try to be guided by a legal approach.”