Tallinn (The Brussels Morning Newspaper) – MEP Marina Kaljurand expressed that she wants to listen to the justifications for the modification in Estonia’s foreign policy standing on Palestine following this week’s UN General Assembly vote.
Ex-Foreign Minister and current Member of the European Parliament said that Estonia has always established its foreign policy on international law. “I have witnessed this,” Kaljurand, a former foreign minister, said. “And these first changes were already [evident] when the vote on Palestine’s status took place a few months ago,” she stated.
What prompted Kaljurand to question Estonia’s Palestine policy?
Kaljurand expressed she will wait until after Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna and the ministry’s secretary general, Jonatan Vseviov, have occurred before the Riigikogu’s Foreign Affairs Committee to give an account of the circumstances, before making more detailed observations.
She stated: “I am not sitting at the plains where the decision to change policy a little, or more, has been made.” “I do not know all the excuses why this has been done. So before I say anything, I would like to hear their supposed, clear reasons and justifications,” Kaljurand added.
is Estonia’s foreign policy still based on international law?
Estonia’s foreign policy concerning Israel and Palestine has up to now been “very clear and very understandable,” she counted, and the country’s foreign approach in general has always been based on international law. “The factors have not changed, it is just that now it has started to be interpreted a little differently, so I would like to hear where this shift has come from,” Kaljurand said.
This week’s UNGA vote on a resolution on Palestine, based on an International Court of Justice (ICJ) sentiment and calling for Israel to terminate its “occupation” of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, found backing from Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and several other EU countries, though the U.S. voted against it.
What is the foreign ministry’s explanation for policy change?
The Riigikogu’s foreign affairs committee and its head Marko Mihkelson have called Minister of Foreign Affairs Margus Tsahkna and his non-political companion, Secretary General Jonatan Vseviov, to give an account of the policy rationale.
MEP Kaljurand also declared the diplomatic struggle for Ukraine is “practically already lost, and it is practically unattainable to reverse,” by which she meant countries are quiet on what to do in terms of criticising Russia’s aggression there and holding war criminals to account.
Many states appear to follow the Kremlin chronology of the war being the result of NATO eastward encroachment and a U.S. and NATO proxy fight on Russia, using the Ukrainians as pawns. “This is the prevalent opinion internationally right now. Can Estonia’s voting pattern affect the international community? I don’t think so,” Kaljurand, an ex-Estonian ambassador to Russia, went on, adding this would be the point even with EU unity on voting.
