* U.N. special envoy escorted to airport
* Angry crowd had trapped him in cafe
* Crimea controlled by Russian forces
(Adds details from U.N. officials, paragraphs 4-6)
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine, March 5 (Reuters) – A U.N. special
envoy was forced to abandon a mission to Ukraine’s
Russian-occupied Crimea region on Wednesday after being detained
and besieged inside a cafe by a hostile crowd shouting “Russia!
Russia!”
Dutch diplomat Robert Serry flew to Istanbul after the
incident and, according to the United Nations, would head from
there back to Kiev. His interpreter, Vadim Kastelli, said Serry
was escorted to the airport without being given a chance to pick
up his bags from his hotel and placed on the first flight out.
Kastelli, who was with Serry at the time, said the incident
began when Serry was blocked by a group of men in civilian
clothes after a meeting at a Ukrainian military compound.
Kastelli said he saw no weapons, although a journalist for
Britain’s ITN television said Serry told him at least one of the
men was armed.
According to U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson, who
spoke to reporters in New York by telephone from Kiev, Serry had
been visiting the naval headquarters in the regional capital,
Simferopol.
“On his way out, he was threatened and brought to his car.
There were unidentified people, some of them armed, telling him
to leave and go to the airport,” Eliasson said. “He refused but
his car couldn’t move, and he decided he would depart (on
foot).”
Eliasson said Serry felt “seriously threatened,” though he
dismissed as false earlier reports that Serry had been
kidnapped.
Kastelli said the men insisted they should take Serry
straight to the airport and out of the country, but Serry
refused and eventually left his surrounded vehicle on foot.
Kastelli said he became separated from Serry when the envoy left
the scene.
The ITN journalist, James Mates, said Serry, currently the
U.N. Middle East envoy and previously Dutch ambassador to
Ukraine, later took shelter in a cafe and agreed to leave Crimea
to end the standoff.
A Reuters photographer saw him being escorted by police
through a crowd of about 100 angry demonstrators, some waving
Russian flags.
Crimea is under control of Russian forces who seized it last
week, although Moscow says “self-defence” units of men in
uniform without insignia are not under its command.
Kastelli said Serry had intended to stay the night and had
more meetings scheduled with regional officials the next day.
“The authorities in Crimea not only knew he was here, but it
was a coordinated programme. I think that is why he decided to
come without security,” Kastelli said.
At the airport in Simferopol, Nikolai Rudkovsky, a Ukrainian
member of parliament, said Serry had boarded a flight for
Istanbul. Rudkovsky said: “He asked to me to tell you that his
recommendation was that all sides sit down and look for an
understanding.”
Kastelli said he had spoken to Serry from the airplane.
“Robert said all the things that are happening show how
concerned he is and concerned all the people of the world should
be about what is happening in Crimea,” he said.
(Reporting by Vasily Fedosenko and Alissa de Carbonel in
Simferopol; Additonal reporting, Peter Graff in Kiev and Louis
Charbonneau in New York; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by
Timothy Heritage and Jonathan Oatis)
