Ukrainian government source about minister Lahbib: “No guarantee at all that a Kyiv visit is possible”

According to Ukraine, there are currently no guarantees that the brand new Minister of Foreign Affairs Hadja Lahbib (MR) can visit Kiev at this time. This is what a highly placed government source tells the editors of VRT NWS. Sunday Minister of Justice and acting Prime Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne (Open VLD) said that there was “no breach of trust”, but now the folds do not seem to have been ironed out completely.
A well-placed Ukrainian government source informs our editors that the folds between the new Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib and Ukraine have not yet been ironed out. Lahbib travelled last July as a journalist to the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, which has been occupied by Russia since 2014. She went via Russia, which is forbidden in Ukraine. This could mean that Lahbib will be denied entry to Ukraine.

“Ukraine’s position has not changed,” our source said. “Our foreign minister has not given any guarantee in his letter that the visit to Kiev is possible at this stage. We still expect Belgium to provide an explanation for the Crimea trip. No such explanation has been forthcoming so far.”

That message from Ukraine does not correspond to what Minister of Justice and acting Prime Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne (Open VLD) still claimed on Sunday. “There is no breach of trust”, was the opinion of Van Quickenborne (Open VLD), who is replacing Prime Minister Alexander De Croo (Open VLD) while he is on holiday.

According to Van Quickenborne, this was evident from the reply to a letter Lahbib sent to her Ukrainian counterpart Dmitro Koeleba to express her support for Ukraine.

“It is very clear from this exchange of letters that Ukraine and Belgium are on the same page,” Van Quickenborne said. “The most important thing is: is there a problem with Ukraine? Because that is what it is about. And I can tell you that there is not.” According to him, Minister Koeleba’s answer shows that Hadja Lahbib is the Belgian interlocutor for Kiev. “What matters to me is how she functions as a minister.”

So now it seems that there is even more resentment between the Ukrainian government and Lahbib than Van Quickenborne let on Sunday. In any case, the matter has not yet been settled and it is even uncertain whether Lahbib would be allowed to enter Ukraine. Although Ukraine is certainly keeping the door open for a discussion with the Minister. The country does continue to ask for “explanations” for the Crimean trip that Lahbib made.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants “to obtain more details about the circumstances of the visit through diplomatic contacts and to make decisions about future bilateral contacts on that basis”, as it said earlier. This statement refers mainly to personal contacts with Minister Lahbib, not to our country as such.

Our editors were not able to see the letter from Koeleba itself, as it concerns confidential information between ministers. But it is clear that the letter is interpreted very differently in Belgium than in Ukraine. Belgium interprets the letter as a positive message, in Ukraine it sounds that it is still up to Belgium to work out a solution.

Meanwhile, Peter De Roover, group leader of opposition party N-VA, has sent a letter to Parliament President Eliane Tillieux, asking for Koeleba’s letter to be delivered to Parliament. “Van Quickenborne gave a false impression about the relationship with Ukraine on Sunday. I therefore urge him to share the letter on which he based himself with Parliament”, it sounds.

The editors asked acting Prime Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne for a reaction, but he referred to Minister Lahbib. However, the Minister did not want to respond either. MR Chairman Georges-Louis Bouchez did react briefly on Twitter in a reply to a tweet by N-VA MP Theo Franken in which he states that there is a diplomatic problem. “Stop with this joke”, he writes. According to Bouchez, it is not up to him or the ministers involved to prove that there is no problem: