Maintaining Global Diplomacy

"The PSI [Proliferation Security Initiative] promotes cooperation by the states best-positioned to act based on their national capacities, using a wide array of military diplomatic and law enforcement tools."
U.S. news release pre annual conference

"We would like to remind the international community that Russia, being a key partner in the fight against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and a full member of the PSI, is not seeking any favours from Canada."
"[The Government of Canada is] fanning anti-Russian hysterics for domestic political considerations; [its] narrow-minded manner [is] inappropriate and counter-productive."
"We will be sure to provide a response to these hostile actions."
"[It is] regrettable [that Canada] has acted contrary to common sense [unilaterally blocking a country from an international event] that happens to be held on its territory."
Russian Foreign Ministry

"While Canada opposes Russia's actions in Ukraine and is right to do so, it would be counterproductive to downgrade cooperation in other areas where we have common interests with Russia, including the proliferation of WMDs [weapons of mass destruction]."
Roland Paris, international relations expert, University of Ottawa

Prime Minister Stephen Harper walks past Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 Summit Thursday Sept.5, 2013 in St. Petersburg, Russia. Adrian Wyld / THE CANADIAN PRESS

A Russian delegation failed to obtain a visa to attend an international conference in Ottawa whose function is directly related to halting the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Two Russian officials in "an openly unfriendly move that contradicts the normal practice of multilateral events" as described by the foreign affairs ministry of Russia, were barred from entry to Canada.

The Proliferation Security Initiative, established in 2003 to respond to global concerns over the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons is holding its annual conference in Ottawa. Officials from 21 countries are expected to attend in the interests of discussing trends and efforts to cope with WMD proliferation. The three-day meeting is seen as essential in combating the spread of large-scale weapons.

The two diplomats working in the Russian Foreign Ministry's non-proliferation and arms control section were refused visas for the purpose of attending the conference, according to the Russian Embassy in Ottawa. Ottawa's frigid relations with Moscow has seen it set aside most issues, diplomatic and otherwise, in response to Moscow's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

When a Russian delegation was given permission to visit Iqaluit in April to attend a high-level international summit on the Arctic, Leona Aglukaq, Canada's Environment Minister, scolded her Russian counterpart over the recent actions by the Kremlin in Ukraine where Russian soldiers and Russian arms were conspiring with ethnic Russian-Ukraines to tear Ukraine apart.

On a strictly nation-to-nation basis, let alone the occasion of international conferences, it would seem far more useful for countries to engage with one another, however frostily, to ensure that communication remains possible, even when one of the parties is behaving in an untenable, dangerous manner threatening to destabilize global security.

Contact with a sane administration might conceivably stabilize the lunacy of an over-reaching imperialist in the Russian presidency.