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Lavrov passes on Arctic Council meeting

Sergei Lavrov is Russia's Foreign Minister.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will not be present in next week’s Ministerial Meeting in Arctic Council, where the United States will take over chairmanship from Canada.

Location

On April 24, Ministers from the eight Arctic Council-member nations — Canada, the United States, Russia, Iceland, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Iceland, as well as leaders from Indigenous permanent participant organizations, meet in the town of in Iqaluit in Canada.

The member nations normally send their foreign minister to ministerial meetings in the Arctic Council, but Instead of hosting Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, Canada will host their environment minister.

“Due to [Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov’s prior commitments, as well as extraordinary recent international developments which require his personal involvement, the Russian delegation at the Arctic Council ministerial meeting will be headed by [Environment Minister] Sergey Donskoy,” a spokesperson from the Russian embassy said, according to Global News.

Michael Byers, Canada Research Chair in global politics and international law at the University of British Columbia, says to CBC that the reason for Lavrov’s absence is the Arctic Council’s focus on domestic issues under Canadian leadership, and has nothing to do with any tensions between Canada and Russia over the conflict in Ukraine.

“You can’t really blame him for saying ‘I don’t need to be there,’” says Byers. “The Russians don’t consider that anything important about foreign policy will be done in Iqaluit,” CBC reports.

Byers says foreign diplomats have privately criticized Canada for shifting the Arctic Council’s focus to domestic issues under its chairmanship.