The ICC arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin threatens to trigger a nuclear war, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has warned.
“The world must be wary of nuclear war after the ICC’s issuance of an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin,” Sen wrote in a short essay-style address on his Telegram page Sunday. “The ICC accusation against President Putin is a shocking political development with an extensive geopolitical impact on Europe and the world,” the prime minister wrote.
Warning that the warrant would “complicate” efforts to find peace in Ukraine, especially in view of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow, where he is expected to offer to mediate, Sen asked “how” Putin could be expected to “negotiate peace when the other side threatens to arrest him?”
Pointing out that a number of major powers, including Russia, the United States, India, and China do not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction, Sen stressed that the court does not have the power to arrest suspects without the cooperation of the respected governments.
Sen suggested that the ICC may have not thought its ‘arrest warrant’ through to the end.
"If Putin is arrested abroad, would the country’s authorities accept this? This is the point at which nuclear war is now almost a reality,” Sen warned.
Sen said the ICC warrant will only serve to “further separate” the world instead of countries uniting in addressing common challenges, such as climate change and infectious diseases.
“I urge all parties to be cautious about the use of nuclear weapons and to refrain from talking about the use of nuclear weapon,” Sen summed up.
Sunday’s statement isn’t the first time that the Cambodian leader has warned of a nuclear danger stemming from the Ukraine crisis. Last year, he said that if the conflict were to go nuclear, it would be the end of humanity. In an address at the United Nations General Assembly in September, he warned that the escalation of the Ukraine crisis to involve “more and more actors…coupled with the threat of a nuclear war, have serious impacts on the world at large.”
Political Circus
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against President Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the presidential commissioner for children’s rights, “for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
Russian lawmakers reacted to the "warrants" with a mix of outrage and trolling.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov revealed Monday how Putin reacted to the "warrant," saying the Russian president did not take the insult to heart. “Therefore we are reacting calmly, carefully record everything, and continue to work. Most importantly, the president continues to work,” the spokesman said.
Russia’s Investigative Committee opened a criminal case against ICC Prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan and three ICC judges on Monday on the basis of their “unlawful decisions” against Putin and Lvova-Belova, given the absence of any “grounds for criminal liability.” Khan and the judges are charged with “bringing a knowingly innocent person to criminal liability,” “unlawfully accusing a person of committing a grave or especially grave crime,” as well as “preparation for an attack on a representative of a foreign state enjoying international protection to complicate international relations.”
The Investigative Committee also pointed out that in accordance with the 1973 Protection of Diplomats Convention, “heads of state enjoy absolute immunity from the jurisdiction of foreign states.”