GET TOUGHER WITH RUSSIA Hunt’s call for more Putin sanctions
JEREMY Hunt wants more sanctions against Russia for the Salisbury poisoning, warning that President Putin is making “the world a more dangerous place”.
At the start of a three-day visit to the US, the Foreign Secretary will call on the EU to stand “shoulder-toshoulder” with Britain and America over Russian aggression.
In a speech at the US Institute of Peace, he will say that under Mr Putin Russia’s “aggressive and malign behaviour undermines the international order that keeps us safe”.
The novichok nerve agent attack on ex-double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in March led to the death of Dawn Sturgess in June.
After the attack, dozens of countries expelled Russian diplomats.
But some have since reached out to the Putin regime. French President Emmanuel Macron travelled to St Petersburg to call on Russia to work “hand-in-hand” with Europe, and Italy has questioned whether sanctions imposed over the 2014 annexation of Crimea should continue.
Mr Hunt will call on the EU to “ensure its sanctions against Russia are comprehensive”.
And, in his first major speech as Foreign Secretary, he will urge the European Commission to “engage” with Theresa May’s Brexit plan.
He will say: “The risk of a messy divorce, as opposed to the friendship we seek, would be a fissure in relations between European allies that would take a generation to heal.”