After the president of the Philippines announced a separation from the US – a statement which his government has since walked back – Russia’s ambassador to the country said Moscow is ready to provide assistance to and fully cooperate with Manila.
Formulate your wish list. What kind of assistance do you expect from Russia and we will be ready to sit down with you and discuss what can and should be done,” Russian Ambassador Igor Khovaev told GMA News on Friday.
He went on to state that Russia is open to working with the Philippines in “any area, any field of possible cooperation.”
The ambassador assured the news outlet that Moscow would not “interfere with the domestic affairs of a sovereign state,” and that the “true Russia” is much different than the one portrayed in Hollywood films.
Khovaev added that the Philippines and Russia “deserve to know each other much, much better.”
He also said that Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte impressed Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev during a meeting in Laos last month, and that Moscow supports the leader’s fight against illegal drugs and criminality.
For its part, the Philippines’ budget minister announced that his country is open to all forms of assistance, but will choose what is in the “best interest of the country,” Reuters reported.
‘Troubling rhetoric’
Meanwhile, relations between Duterte and the US aren’t quite as rosy. The Philippines leaderannounced it was “time to say goodbye” to Washington on Thursday, including to military and economic cooperation.
However, the Philippines’ trade minister, Ramon Lopez, told CNN on Friday that the leader“wasn’t talking about separation” from the United States.
Although Duterte explicitly stated that the Philippines would be separating from the US economically, Lopez said that “in terms of economic [ties], we are not stopping trade, investment with America. The president specifically mentioned his desire to strengthen further the ties with China and the ASEAN region, which we have been trading with for centuries.”
