KYIV: Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Cameron traveled to wartime Kyiv and met President Volodymyr Zelensky for talks on his first working trip abroad, the Ukrainian leader said on Thursday.
Former prime minister Cameron, who was named as Britain’s new foreign minister on Monday, said in a video posted by Zelensky’s office that he wanted to underscore London’s support for Ukraine.
Zelensky said he was grateful for the gesture, which comes amid a conflict in the Middle East that he said had drawn global attention away from Ukraine’s war with Russia, which is now in its 21st month and with no end in sight.
“The world is not so focused on the battlefield situation in Ukraine, and this dividing of the focus really does not help,” he said.
Britain has been a close ally of Ukraine throughout the full-scale war launched by Russia in February 2022.
“What I want to say by being here is that we will continue to give you the moral support, the diplomatic support... but above all the military support that you need not just this year and next year, but however long it takes,” Cameron said.
He added that Britain would work with its allies “to make sure the attention is here in Ukraine.”
The Ukrainian statement did not say when the talks took place. Strict security measures in place because of the war mean details of visits by foreign dignitaries are sometimes released only some time after they have happened.
UK’s Cameron meets Zelensky in Kyiv on first foreign trip as foreign minister
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UK’s Cameron meets Zelensky in Kyiv on first foreign trip as foreign minister
- Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Cameron wants to underscore London’s support for Ukraine
Top Australian writers’ festival canceled after Palestinian author barred
SYDNEY: One of Australia’s top writers’ festivals was canceled on Tuesday, after 180 authors boycotted the event and its director resigned saying she could not be party to silencing a Palestinian author and warned moves to ban protests and slogans after the Bondi Beach mass shooting threatened free speech.
Louise Adler, the Jewish daughter of Holocaust survivors, said on Tuesday she was quitting her role at the Adelaide Writers’ Week in February, following a decision by the festival’s board to disinvite a Palestinian-Australian author.
The novelist and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah said the move to bar her was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday announced a national day of mourning would be held on January 22 to remember the 15 people killed in last month’s shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach.
Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by the Islamic State militant group, and the incident sparked nationwide calls to tackle antisemitism, and prompted state and federal government moves to tighten hate speech laws.
The Adelaide Festival board said on Tuesday its decision last week to disinvite Abdel-Fattah, on the grounds it would not be culturally sensitive for her to appear at the literary event “so soon after Bondi,” was made “out of respect for a community experiencing the pain from a devastating event.”
“Instead, this decision has created more division and for that we express our sincere apologies,” the board said in a statement.
The event would not go ahead and remaining board members will step down, it added.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, British author Zadie Smith, Australian author Kathy Lette, Pulitzer Prize-winning American Percival Everett and former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis are among the authors who said they would no longer appear at the festival in South Australia state, Australian media reported.
The festival board on Tuesday apologized to Abdel-Fattah for “how the decision was represented.”
“This is not about identity or dissent but rather a continuing rapid shift in the national discourse around the breadth of freedom of expression in our nation following Australia’s worst terror attack in history,” it added.
Abdel-Fattah wrote on social media that she did not accept the apology, saying she had nothing to do with the Bondi attack, “nor did any Palestinian.”
Adler earlier wrote in The Guardian that the board’s decision to disinvite Abdel-Fattah “weakens freedom of speech and is the harbinger of a less free nation, where lobbying and political pressure determine who gets to speak and who doesn’t.”
The South Australian state government has appointed a new festival board.
