AS a lifetime resident of the pleasant city of Salisbury I would urge the new Foreign Secretary,
Jeremy Hunt MP, to find new ways of engaging Moscow to amend its conduct of foreign relations.
Some pointers might include the following:
- The use of Novichok must be abandoned in hunting down enemies of the Russian state.
- The Kremlin must get a grip on its own security agencies who largely operate according to
their own whim.
At the same time, the West has to recognise that:
- The Crimea is going to stay part of Russia, and this has to be accepted.
- The long campaign led by Washington to destabilise the Assad regime in Syria has failed.
President Trump recognises this reality, which is more than can be said for his predecessors.
- The UK, like France, is a major European power which must put its own regional interests
first. Plans to send new aircraft carriers to the Far East shows a remarkable level of wishful
thinking among the Whitehall policy-makers.
Timothy Stroud
Salisbury
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