Sergey Lavrov: on double standards in foreign policy, the UN and NATO
During a speech to students and teachers of MGIMO on the occasion of 1 Knowledge Day, September, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia was against double standards in foreign policy that had manifested themselves in the case of a wave of revolutions in Arab countries. "For double standards dictated by the political situation or the objective preferences of one or another power, there should be no place," Lavrov said.
“It’s hard to understand, for example, why in Yemen, where a serious armed conflict continues, all members of the international community rightly try to help find a compromise between the authorities and the opposition, while a number of influential countries are persistently provoking the opposition to a boycott of proposals about the national dialogue and forcing up the confrontation, refusing to even discuss the belated, but still very real reforms proposed by President Bashar Asad, "explained the min p.
According to Lavrov, in this situation, "external players" should take special care, and not seek to "grab geopolitical benefits for themselves."
At the same time, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry noted that Russia supports the movement of Arab countries towards democracy.
"Russia supports these aspirations aimed at finding a democratic model," he said. Lavrov also added that the driving force behind the processes in this region was "the desire of Arab peoples for a better life through the renewal of their countries."
Meanwhile, Sergei Lavrov drew attention to the fact that the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council (UN) on peacekeeping operations should be very clear and contain specific limits on the use of force.
“When the UN Security Council decides on peacekeeping or peace-enforcing operations, their mandate should be extremely clear and exhaustive with regard to the purpose and participants of the operation, and especially with regard to limits on the use of force. Russia will attend to this in the future,” the minister said.
Lavrov recalled that the neglect of these rules led to sad consequences in the case of Libya.
"Russia never justified the former Libyan regime. Back in May, President Dmitry Medvedev said that Muammar Gaddafi should leave. However, the way the Libyan resolutions were implemented by NATO members and some other states means a gross disregard for the principles of the rule of law, ignoring the initiatives of the African Union and the UN, multiplied the number of civilian casualties, and that was exactly the main goal of the resolution, "said S. Lavrov.
“We are sure that it is impossible to administer justice using lawless methods,” the Russian Foreign Minister concluded.
In addition, during his speech, the head of the Russian foreign ministry spoke on the political assurances of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on security issues.
"Political assurances, as practice shows, are not enough. There were, for example, assurances that NATO would not expand eastwards. The fate of these assurances is known. Then there was NATO’s commitment not to deploy significant combat forces in the territory of the new members of the alliance. But we We still cannot get an explanation of how these assurances are consistent with the ongoing advancement of the Alliance’s military infrastructure to the East, which is also being actively replenished with elements of the European segment of the global anti-missile harrows (ABM), the United States, "- Lavrov said.
“The American Euro missile defense system is being created on the parameters that Washington defined and which, as the Russian leadership has repeatedly said, by the end of this decade could pose a threat to Russian strategic nuclear forces. At the same time, we are not guaranteed guarantees of non-directionality of the US-NATO missile defense system against Russia,” head of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
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