Wednesday 15 February 2023

Lavrov: Russia’s Updated Foreign Policy Concept to Focus on Suspending West’s Monopoly

Lavrov: Russia’s Updated Foreign Policy Concept to Focus on Suspending West’s Monopoly

Lavrov: Russia’s Updated Foreign Policy Concept to Focus on Suspending West’s Monopoly




©Sergei Fadeichev/TASS






Russia's new foreign policy concept will focus on the need to end the West's monopoly on shaping the framework of international relations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday.







"In our updated foreign policy concept, we will talk about the need to end the West's monopoly on the formation of the framework of international life, the framework should henceforth be determined not in its selfish interests, but on a fairly universal basis of a balance of interests, as required by the UN Charter, which enshrined the principle of the sovereign equality of all states," Lavrov said during his speech at the State Duma.


The purpose of the West's hybrid war against Moscow is to turn Russia into a rogue state, Lavrov said.


"The United States and its satellites are carrying out a full-out hybrid war against us today, which has been in preparation for many years, using Ukrainian national radicals as a battering ram. The purpose of this war is not hidden — not only to defeat our country on the battlefield, destroying the Russian economy, but also to surround us with a cordon sanitaire, turn us into a kind of rogue state" Lavrov said.


The minister added that all West's attempts to isolate Russia have failed.


"Attempts to isolate Russia have failed, and our enemies have to admit it," the minister concluded.


Russia is delaying the payment of fees to organizations that discriminate against Moscow's interests, Lavrov said.


"We delay the payment of fees to organization where our interests are discriminated against. This happened, for example, in the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, where an illegitimate mechanism contrary to the convention was introduced," Lavrov said.







The minister added that Russia is currently reviewing all its obligations to international organizations.



Lavrov says West violates its OSCE commitments by cancelling Russian media



Western steps to cancel Russian and Russian-language media are a gross violation of commitments made by Western countries within the OSCE, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday at a working meeting with the heads of foreign media outlets accredited in Russia.


The top diplomat noted that Russia regarded such actions as "intolerance to pluralism of opinion". "From the legal point of view, this line of abolition of Russian and Russian-language media blatantly violates the commitments that (Western countries) have undertaken within the OSCE to ensure media freedom and equal access to information for the population of all OSCE countries," Lavrov said.


He also recalled the words of EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who had earlier stated that Western countries were banning Russian media in order to "protect freedom of speech". Lavrov pointed out that the initiative to ensure freedom of speech in 1990 was voiced by the very France that restricted the work of RT and Sputnik.


"I would like to point out an interesting fact: the main initiator of such an obligation to ensure access to information in 1990 was France, the same France that kicked RT and Sputnik out of the Elysee Palace years ago, declaring them instruments of Russian propaganda," the top diplomat said.




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