Trade delegates walk out on Russian speaker

BANGKOK — Delegates from Canada, the United States and three other nations staged a walkout on Saturday when a representative from Russia began his opening remarks at a meeting of trade ministers of the AsiaPacific Economic Co-operation group in the Thai capital, Bangkok, officials said.

A spokeswoman for Canadian Trade Minister Mary Ng said Canada walked out alongside the U.S., New Zealand, Japan and Australia during Russia’s intervention.

“Canada has already taken many actions to hold Russia accountable for its devastating invasion of Ukraine, including severe sanctions against [President Vladimir] Putin and those who enable him, but we must keep the pressure on,” the minister’s spokeswoman, Alice Hansen, wrote in an email.

A Japanese official said Japan’s trade minister, Koichi Hagiuda, and his counterparts walked out of the meeting in Bangkok to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A statement from the office of New Zealand Trade and Export Growth Minister Damien O’Connor said he walked out “in protest at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has slowed the region’s economic recovery from COVID-19 and made it harder for people in the region to get food on their tables.”

A U.S. official in Bangkok confirmed the walkout but did not provide further details. There is diplomatic sensitivity over speaking about the incident because the proceedings were held in closed session. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai is representing Washington at the meeting.

Thailand is this year’s host nation for meetings of APEC, which comprises 21 economies.

The walkout occurred just as Maxim Reshetnikov, Russia’s minister for economic development, was set to deliver his opening remarks.