President: Ukraine, Canada strengthening economic and political ties

22.06.2020 10:52

Ukrinform

Visa liberalization with Canada would be an important step for Ukraine in strengthening relations between the two countries, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with The Globe and Mail.

"Our people need to feel equally free, simple, open - both Canadians in Ukraine and Ukrainians in Canada. That is why we are talking about liberalization. It seems to me that Justin (Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau - ed.) supports this direction, and I want to bring this moment closer step by step," the President said, the press service of the Head of State reports.

Volodymyr Zelensky stressed in the interview that economic relations between Ukraine and Canada developed in real steps, not in words. In particular, this concerns the solution of problems of the Canadian company Black Iron, which wanted to invest in a mining and processing plant in Kryvyi Rih city.

"I know this very well, because I am from Kryvyi Rih and this is the investment in my hometown. This problem has been "hanging" for 10 years, but it is such a big investor. The size of the investment is 1.1 billion US dollars. They could not enter Ukraine," the President said.

According to the Head of State, now this issue is almost resolved.

"It will be a very big cooperation. After all, this is more than a billion of investment in Ukraine, it is very important for Canada, for Black Iron, and it is important for us," Volodymyr Zelensky stressed.

The President also noted that Ukraine and Canada were united by a great tragedy - the downing of the Ukraine International Airlines plane in Tehran, which took place in January 2020.

"Different things in life unite. Unfortunately, tragedies as well. At the time, we were working with Justin (Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau - ed.). We had a lot of communication, and we were able together with American partners to make Iran admit that they are guilty of this tragedy. Now the investigation continues. At that time, the Prime Minister (of Canada - ed.) and I talked several times, at some point it was several times a week, and we solved really important problems,” the President said.

Volodymyr Zelensky stressed that Ukrainians and Canadians were united by ancient historical relations. He thanked the representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada who collected humanitarian aid for Ukraine at the beginning of the war in 2014.

"I think that it is in such difficult times that this closeness, which is at the genetic level between countries and nations, is manifested," the President said.

As reported, Ukraine abolished visas for Canadians back in 2005, but Canada has not yet cancelled mutual visa requirements. Ukraine's inclusion in the Canadian trusted traveler program was announced during President Zelensky's visit to Canada in July this year. However, the Canadian side has not yet revealed details of this program for Ukraine.