MEP: I would like to know more about change in Estonia's UNGA voting policy
Former Foreign Minister and current Member of the European Parliament, Marina Kaljurand (SDE), said she wants to hear the justifications for the change in Estonia's foreign policy position on Palestine following this week's UN General Assembly (UNGA) vote.
According to her, Estonia has always based its foreign policy on international law.
"I have noticed this," Kaljurand, a former foreign minister, told ERR.
"And these first changes were already [evident] when the vote on Palestine's status took place a few months ago," she went on.
Kaljurand said she will wait until after Minister of Foreign Affairs Margus Tsahkna (Eesti 200) and the ministry's secretary general, Jonatan Vseviov, have appeared before the Riigikogu's Foreign Affairs Committee to give an account of the situation, before making more detailed comments.
She said: "I am not sitting at the tables where the decision to change policy a little, or more, has been made."
"I do not know all the reasons why this has been done. So before I say anything, I would like to hear their considered, clear reasons and justifications," Kaljurand added.
Estonia's foreign policy regarding Israel and Palestine has up to now been "very clear and very understandable," she added, and the country's foreign policy in general has always been based on international law.
"The factors have not changed, it is just that now it has started to be interpreted a little differently, so I would like to hear where this shift has come from," Kaljurand went on.
This week's UNGA vote on a resolution on Palestine, based on an International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinion and calling for Israel to end its "occupation" of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, found support from Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and several other EU nations, though the U.S. voted against it.
Overall, the resolution, which is non-binding, passed with 124 votes to 14, and 43 abstentions.
The Riigikogu's foreign affairs committee and its chair Marko Mihkelson (Reform) have summoned Minister of Foreign Affairs Margus Tsahkna (Eesti 200) and his non-political counterpart, Secretary General Jonatan Vseviov, to give an account of the policy rationale.
Kaljurand also said the diplomatic battle for Ukraine is "practically already lost, and it is practically impossible to reverse," by which she meant countries are silent on what to do in terms of condemning Russia's aggression there and holding war criminals to account.
Many states seem to follow the Kremlin narrative of the war being the result of NATO eastward encroachment and a U.S. and NATO proxy war on Russia, using the Ukrainians as pawns.
"This is the prevailing opinion internationally right now. Can Estonia's voting pattern influence the international community? I don't think so," Kaljurand, a former Estonian ambassador to Russia, went on, adding this would be the case even with EU unity on voting.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Aleksander Krjukov