Hiroshima, May 18, (dpa/GNA) - G7 countries want to restrict the multi-billion dollar export of rough diamonds from Russia as punishment for the invasion of Ukraine, several diplomats told dpa on Thursday.
The goal is to reduce Russia’s revenues and thus limit its ability to wage war. The diamond trade is an important economic sector for the country and a significant source of income.
A joint G7 declaration on the diamonds is to be adopted at the G7 summit of leading industrial democracies in Hiroshima, Japan.
The G7 includes the United States, Germany, France, Italy, Britain, Canada and Japan, which currently holds the rotating chair. European Union leaders will also be at the meeting.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, just back from his two-day trip to Iceland for the first Council of Europe summit in 18 years, made a quick turnaround and headed to the G7 summit, touching down on Thursday before the official start of talks on Friday.
Scholz said the joint declaration aims to close loopholes in trade restrictions imposed on Russia since the attack on Ukraine.
“I assume that we can come together very well on all the issues,” Scholz said on Thursday after arriving in Hiroshima.
US President Joe Biden’s security adviser, Jake Sullivan, also spoke of eliminating loopholes.
“There will be discussions about the state of play on sanctions and the steps that the G7 will collectively commit to on enforcement in particular, making sure that we are shutting down evasion networks, closing loopholes in the sanctions so that the impact is amplified and magnified,” said Sullivan on his flight to Japan.
Some loopholes include Chinese companies accused of continuing to supply goods from the EU to Russia that could be used for warfare.
The European Commission recently proposed creating legal restrictions on selected exports of goods that could be used for military purposes in third-party countries.
According to diplomatic sources, the proposal is by no means welcomed by all EU states. The danger is that member states may not be sufficiently willing to put countries like China on such a list because of possible retaliatory measures.
For Germany, China has been the most important trading partner in the past seven years and a complete export ban to Russia is not expected, they said.
The war in Ukraine, the state of the global economy, denuclearization and the West’s relationship with China are set to top the agenda of the leaders’ discussions in Hiroshima.
The West has imposed far-reaching sanctions on Russia in response to the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
GNA