(Ottawa) The Trudeau government is seriously considering the possibility of reopening the Canadian embassy in Kyiv, which had officially closed on the first day of the Russian invasion.
Posted at 4:59 p.m.
“We are actively exploring the possibilities of reopening our embassy in Ukraine. Ensuring the safety of our personnel is an absolute priority and we must ensure that the security situation on the ground allows it,” said Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly in a statement.
The opening of our embassy is both a symbolic gesture to communicate our strong and continued support for Ukraine, and a way to continue to provide services to Canadians.
Mélanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, in a statement
The Canadian Embassy in Kyiv closed its doors on February 24, at the start of the Russian invasion. Canadian diplomats are working from Poland, having initially been relocated from Kyiv to Lviv in the west of the country in mid-February.
The United States is preparing to reopen its own embassy in the Ukrainian capital, from where Russian forces withdrew, said Secretary of State Antony Blinken, with whom Mélanie Joly will meet virtually on Tuesday.
Mr. Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met on Sunday with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. It was the first American diplomatic visit to Ukraine since the start of the war.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE PRESIDENCY OF UKRAINE, REUTERS
Lloyd Austin, United States Secretary of Defense, Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine, and Antony Blinken, United States Secretary of State
A few days ago, in an interview with the CBC, the former President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko invited the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, and his Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, to come and visit also on Ukrainian soil.
Chrystia [Freeland], we are waiting for you in Ukraine. It’s a perfect time to come with Justin Trudeau, another very good friend from Ukraine, and a very good friend of mine as well.
Petro Poroshenko, former President of Ukraine, during an interview with CBC
Justin Trudeau’s office did not want to indicate if he could make a trip to Ukraine in the near future – this type of high-risk security trip is never publicly communicated to the government anyway. advance.
” Good news ”
Bloc Québécois MP Stéphane Bergeron welcomes the potential resumption of Canadian diplomatic activities in Kyiv. “This is good news for us. From the moment we started to withdraw staff from the embassy, we had expressed reservations,” he said.
Because “several allied countries maintained their embassies in Kyiv, because it was a way of signifying [leur] support, [leur] unconditional support for the Ukrainians”, and it “gave the impression that we were rushing to leave the place, leaving the Ukrainians to their own devices”.
The closure of the embassy plunged those displaced by the war in Ukraine into an administrative maze that earned severe criticism from the liberal government. Immigration Minister Sean Fraser threw in some ballast and relaxed the criteria for admission to emergency travel authorization in mid-March.
As of April 19, 163,747 applications had been received, of which 56,633 had been approved, according to the Immigration Department. Between February 21 and April 17, 14,115 Ukrainian citizens and Canadian permanent residents entered the country, the Canada Border Services Agency said.