Former British Ambassador Craig Murray, an outspoken dissident and supporter of Julian Assange, issued a sharp warning very quickly upon hearing the news of the Black Sea incident provoked by the British Navy. Murray’s comments were published by Consortium News this morning.
“Sometimes it is worth stating the obvious,” he pointed out. “The United Kingdom does not have a coast in the Black Sea. British warships are not infesting the Black Sea out of a peaceful intent, and there is no cause for them to be entering disputed waters close to anybody’s coast. This is not a question of freedom of navigation under the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea. There is nowhere that a British warship can be heading from the UK under the right of innocent passage that would require it to pass through coastal waters by Crimea. The Black Sea is famously a cul-de-sac.
“I expect we will now be in for a mad frenzy of Russophobia, yet again…. The UK needs to lose its imperial delusions. Sending gunboats to the Crimea is as mad as – well, sailing an aircraft carrier expressly to threaten the Chinese. There are those who see this activity as evidence of the UK’s continued great power status. I see it as evidence of lunacy.”
