By Craig Murray
June 11, 2022:
Information Clearing House
-- I was in Turkey
to try to further peace talks, as an experienced
diplomat with good contacts there, and as a
peace activist. I was not there as a journalist
and much of what I discussed was with the
understanding of confidence. It will be probably
be some years before I judge it reasonable and
fair to reveal all that I know. But I can give
some outline.
Turkey continues to be the centre of
diplomatic activity on resolving the Ukraine
war. It is therefore particularly revealing, and
a sign of Western priorities, that I did not
come across a single western journalist there
trying to follow and cover the diplomatic
process. There are hundreds of Western
journalists in Ukraine, effectively embedded
with the Ukrainian authorities, producing war
porn. There appear to be none seriously covering
attempts to make peace.
There was a sea change two weeks ago when
Ukraine shifted to a public stance that it would
cede no territory at all in a peace deal. On 21
May, Zelensky’s office
stated that “The war must end with the
complete restoration of Ukraine’s territorial
integrity and sovereignty.” Previously while
they had been emphatic that no territory in “the
East” would be ceded, there had been studied
ambiguity about whether that referred to Donbass
alone or also the Crimea.
The new Ukrainian stance, that there will be
no peace deal without recovering the Crimea, has
ended for now any hopes of an early ceasefire.
It appears to be a militarily unachievable
objective – I cannot think of any scenario in
which Russia de facto loses Crimea, without the
serious possibility of worldwide nuclear war.
This blow to the peace process was a setback
in Ankara, and I should say that every source I
spoke with believed the Ukrainians were acting
on instructions conveyed from Washington to
Zelensky
by Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, who
openly stated he wanted the war to wear down
Russian defence capabilities.
A long war in Ukraine is of course massively
in the interest of the US military industrial
complex, whose dripping roasts in Afghanistan,
Iraq and Syria have gone rather off the heat. It
also forwards the strategic objective of
severely damaging the Russian economy, although
much of that damage is mutual. Why we live in a
world where the goal of nations is to damage the
lives of inhabitants of other nations is a
question which continues to puzzle me.
Turkey has
for now turned towards the more limited goal
of ensuring that grain supplies can be shipped
out from the Black Sea through the Bosphorus.
This is essential for developing nations and
essential for world food supplies, which were
already under pressure before this war began.
Turkey is offering to clear sea lanes of mines
and to police the ships carrying grain from the
port of Odessa, which is still under Ukrainian
control. Russia has agreed to the deal.
Ukraine is objecting to this plan to export
its own wheat, because it objects to the removal
of the mines, which I should be clear were put
down in the sea lanes by Ukraine to prevent
amphibious attack on Odessa. There is
monumental hypocrisy by the West on this,
blaming Russia for preventing the export of the
grain while it is actually blocked in by
Ukraine’s own mines, which they currently refuse
to allow Turkey to remove.
On 19 May this was the headline of a UN press
release:
Lack of Grain Exports Driving Global
Hunger to Famine Levels, as War in Ukraine
Continues, Speakers Warn Security Council
As it states, Ukraine and Russia together
account for one third of world grain exports and
two thirds of world sunflower oil exports. Many
of those who die from this war are likely to do
so in developing countries, from hunger. The
decision of the EU and US to target Russian and
Belarussian agricultural exports for sanctions
displays an extraordinary callousness towards
the very poorest human beings on the globe, who
cannot afford rising food prices.
Well, the headline here is that the USA and
EU are pushing Ukraine to block any food deal,
based on a number of objections including the
reduction in the security of Odessa and the
claim that Russia will sell looted Ukrainian
grain. The view in both Ankara and the
developing world is that the big picture, of
millions facing starvation, is being lost.
The experience has made me so cynical that I
am left wondering if the interests of the
powerful agricultural lobbies in both the EU and
USA are influencing policy. High world food
prices benefit some powerful interests.
I blame Putin for starting a war that does
nothing to redress Russian long term security
concerns. But the truth is that politicians in
the West are equally keen on this war. Boris
Johnson yesterday was blatantly promoting it for
his own survival. Anybody who makes any effort
to stop the killing – Presidents Macron and
Erdogan in particular – are immediately and
universally denounced by the “liberal” media.
Yet what is the end result that the liberal
warmongers wish to achieve? When we reach the
stage that Henry Kissinger is a comparative
voice of sanity, the political situation is
indeed dire.
Craig Murray - Historian, Former
Ambassador, Human Rights Activist
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