Here is a neatly turned speech in Boston by the British Ambassador to the UN, Sir John Sawers, marking UN Day. He recalls how Artur Rubinstein defiantly played the Polish anthem back in 1945 to show his contempt for the exclusion of a democratic Poland at the establishment of the UN. And […]
Lord Ashdown and Richard Holbrooke have penned a long joint letter to the Guardian warning about the risks of the international community taking its eye off the Bosnia problem. They focus on what they see as the basic aim of Republika Srpska PM Milorad Dodik: His long-term policy seems clear: to place his […]
Blogging latterly light, or to be precise nil – I have been on diplomatic training expeditions (as trainer) in Brussels and London. Interesting trying to explain to young diplomats how to set about working out how to respond in policy and media terms to a serious event. My approach: whatever […]
Foreign policy is – at root – simple. Identify a clear and fair-minded position. Then use all available sticks and carrots to pursue it. And don’t give up quickly, lest you lose impetus and credibility. Thus one might think that Russia’s August power-play to slice off parts of a fellow […]
Chapter 7 of Craig Murray’s book describes his first serious skirmish with the FCO, over a speech he makes about human rights. By the date of the speech he has been in Uzbekistan exactly 56 days. His nonetheless bold aim: … to fracture what I believed had become a conspiracy of silence by […]
A neat summing up of attitudes round the region as Macedonia and Montenegro recognise Kosovo. Key argument: It also helps that Montenegro supported a Serbian initiative in the UN seeking a ruling by the International Court of Justice on Kosovo’s February independence declaration. The General Assembly adopted that resolution on […]
Feuding as he already is with his lead FCO department, Craig Murray sits down to write a strong speech on Uzbekistan human rights issues. He sends a draft to London, to FCO Human Rights Department led by his old pal (and mine) Jon Benjamin – himself something of a post-Sovietologist […]
A reader prompted by my Nagorno-Karabakh posting writes: I was interested in the part of this post where you refer to the negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and in particular the Russian negotiator’s cabinet of diplomatic curiosities and arguments over the placing of commas and use of the word ‘the’. (Reminiscent of […]
A phrase which these days is hard to eradicate from bureaucratic discourse is ‘positive feedback’. It is used in the sense of asking around for views on an issue/paper/person and getting views ‘fed back’ (positive views, or negative views). Quiet how this scientifically precise phrase came to acquire this trite new […]
After a long break (exhaustion) we return to working our way through Craig Murray’s Murder in Samarkand. Chapters 5 and 6 give us a lively account of Craig’s first major foray deep into Uzbekistan (the Ferghana Valley), complete with accompanying local KGB-style minders. He stays in dirty, basic hotels ("I felt […]
