French Diplomat Highlights Need To Maintain Dialogue With Russia

Paris believes that it’s important to maintain channels for dialogue with Moscow and opposes attempts to isolate Russia, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said on Tuesday.

“It is very important to have channels for communication with Russian President Vladimir Putin,” she told the France Inter radio station. “Isolation would be the worst policy option,” she stressed.

Colonna noted that “efforts to maintain contact made it possible to send an International Atomic Energy Agency mission to the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant.” “Dialogue helps to achieve results,” she added.

“A time will come when the conflict will end. It may last long but Russia will always be our neighbor,” the French top diplomat emphasized.

On Saturday morning, a truck exploded on the Crimean Bridge, collapsing two eastbound parts of its road section and setting ablaze a train of fuel tanks on the rail portion of the bridge. The bridge later reopened to traffic. Russian President Vladimir Putin slammed the explosion as a terrorist attack on cricial civilian infrastructure and blamed it on Ukrainian intelligence agencies.