In a letter sent to the Kimberley Process (KP) chairperson Zhemu Soda, Russian deputy minister of finance Alexey Moiseev expressed disapproval of the diamond protocol proposed by G7 countries, arguing that it undermines KP's efforts and creates a redundant parallel structure.
According to the letter received by Rough&Polished today, the Russian Ministry of Finance has seen "consistent irresponsible attempts to undermine achievements of the KP" in 2022-2023, blaming Western countries to be the main actors behind such activities.
Furthermore, it said that these nations are "deliberately downplaying KP’s achievements and questioning its effectiveness", while attempting to sabotage the agenda of the plenary meetings, as well as to block the nomination of Belarus for KP chairmanship.
"The Western countries have launched a hatred campaign against Russia within the Kimberley Process, unscrupulously abusing the KP’s principle of open dialogue," says Moiseev.
He believes that sanctions and restrictive measures of the G7, if implemented, will essentially take the form of a structure parallel to the KP, and the exclusion of the largest global diamond supplier by volume from the market will lead to "market distortion".
Finally, Moiseev argued that "any attempts to accuse Russia of non-compliance" with the KP's principles "are completely groundless".
"Thus, in order to once again demonstrate to the KP Participants the full compliance of the Russian Federation with the KP minimum requirements, we would like to inform you of our readiness to host a review visit to Russia in 2024," - he said.
KP's next plenary meeting will be held on November 6-10 in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.
Theodor Lisovoy, Editor in Chief of the European bureau, Rough&Polished
