French Ambassador to Ukraine Jacques Faure has said that the rumors of his recall from Kyiv were started by the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.
The ambassador said this in an interview with Ukrainsky Tyzhden Magazine.
"Nobody recalled me as the Ambassador of France from Ukraine. Both the embassy and the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of France made a refutation of these rumors swirling around me," he said.
"The official political position of my government about the trial, which you mentioned (the trial of Yulia Tymoshenko), has been consistently and publicly expressed by me personally as ambassador in the statements to the press, and in communiqué by the Foreign Ministry of France dated June 23 and August 6. The latest refutation on this issue was published by the Ministry on August 10," Faure recalled.
"I regret that such false and misleading information about me was created within the walls of the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine and circulated in the media. This is indecent," the ambassador said.
As reported, a source in the diplomatic corps in Kyiv told Interfax-Ukraine earlier that among the possible reasons behind the decision to recall the ambassador from Ukraine was the dissatisfaction in Paris with the fact that Faure recently made public comments on the trial of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko that upset the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry confirmed that France had recalled its current ambassador Jacques Faure from Ukraine. "It is true, that a candidacy for a new ambassador is currently being agreed. We do not know the reason for the previous ambassador’s withdrawal, because it is not customary in diplomatic practice to notify the country about the reasons for the recall of a diplomatic representative," director of the Information Policy Department of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Oleh Voloshyn said.
However, on August 10, the Foreign Ministry of France refuted the reports about the withdrawal of the country’s ambassador from Ukraine.
