Актуальная информация

Question:  How do you assess the outcome of the G20 summit in London? What contribution is Russia ready to make to international efforts to exit the economic crisis? Do you agree with the opinion that paradoxically the global economic crisis may help improve relations between Russia, and the West and the United States?

Sergey Lavrov:  Overall, we are gratified by the outcome of the G20 London summit. The decisions taken at it develop the Washington agreements of last year and are focused on achieving practical results in overcoming the present crisis and “resetting” the world economy. There was agreed a huge, $1.1 trillion program to marshal financial resources for anti-crisis measures on a global scale. A number of important steps were approved that aim to make world financial markets more transparent, balanced and predictable and to prevent new “bubbles” and dangerous imbalances from appearing. Many of these measures, concerning, for example, the democratization of the Bretton Woods Institutions and oversight for hedge funds and credit rating agencies, would have been completely unthinkable only a couple of years ago. This suggests that the global financial architecture is gradually changing.

An important and hope-inspiring signal for the world community was the political will shown at the summit by leaders of the world’s major countries to adopt well-balanced decisions in face of a common threat to all. You certainly remember what informational background had prevailed before the meeting. There was much talk about contradictions, and even a split in the ranks of the G20. The summit has shown that the leaders of the states which account for over 80% of global GDP can arrive at consensus agreements in the common interest. It was no coincidence that world markets reacted very positively to the London meeting’s outcome – the main stock indices and exchange quotations went up.

Naturally we are aware of the fact that the summit has not solved all problems, nor could it have done that. Much will also depend on how the agreements are going to be realized in practice now. In particular, this is what the third G20 summit will focus on, due to be held before the year’s end.

As to Russia’s contribution to the common efforts, it is, in my view, significant. Recall that President Dmitry Medvedev was the first to declare the need for global financial architecture reform, addressing the Twelfth Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 7, 2008. We had also raised this question at the G8 Hokkaido summit.

We had prepared substantive proposals toward the London summit, reflecting Russia’s vision of optimal ways to shape a new world financial system and to overcome the consequences of the global financial and economic crisis. They comprised a number of concrete measures directed at coordinating macroeconomic and budget policies, stimulating internal demand during the crisis period, intensifying regulation and oversight, and reforming the international financial institutions. Many of our ideas found reflection in the outcome documents of the meeting.

Russia will continue to be actively involved in this work. In particular, the decision adopted in London on the re-establishment of the Financial Stability Forum as a Financial Stability Board involving Russia and a number of other states, opens up new possibilities for the furtherance of our proposals on ways to reform the world financial architecture.

We intend to continue to render aid to needy states which have found themselves in a particularly difficult position during the crisis period. In this case we will pay the main attention to our nearest neighbors, the CIS countries. We have already allocated considerable sums to Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. To that end, we also plan to make use of the specifically created EurAsEC Anti-Crisis Fund, whose overall amount is fixed at $10 billion, of which $7.5 billion are Russia’s contribution.

Now about the impact of the crisis on Russia’s relations with the West and the US: I think that it really can aid their improvement, and primarily help the US and the West put relations with Russia on a more constructive track. That cooperation not only shapes a positive common agenda, but also helps accumulate the necessary reciprocal trust, skills and culture of dialogue and interaction. And there’s no paradox here – on the contrary, common sense tells us that, during the crisis, artificially politicized issues recede into the background and all sides acknowledge common interests, especially when it concerns truly vital issues.

At the same time, although the crisis pushes sides toward closer collaboration, it is impossible to remove the existing contradictions in relations without the good will of governments. President Medvedev at meetings with leaders of major western countries and the US made it clear that we stand ready for constructive cooperation in all areas, including the economic and trade domain. But we also expect from our partners adequate steps, among them support for Russia’s accession to the WTO on standard terms as an important element of recognition of its accomplished integration into the world economy. We hope that the artificial obstacles in the path of Russia to the WTO will be quickly removed. A good signal of the willingness to practically collaborate with Russia would be the abolition in the US of the notorious Jackson-Vanik amendment, although this has long since been not our, but America’s problem.

Question:  There is an opinion that one of the possible ways to exit the crisis, in particular for the US, and perhaps also for Russia, is war. What is the likelihood of origination of large-scale armed conflicts in the coming years and months?

Sergey Lavrov:  We are indeed familiar with such suppositions of individual experts. They make us cautious but are generally baseless, I think. The mistake of those who draw analogies between the present global financial and economic crisis and the Great Depression of the 1930s is that they fail to recognize the principled distinctions between the two eras. The chief one is that we live in an era of globalization, when there is a broad understanding that neither a single state nor a group or association of states can solve any of the pressing international problems alone, which, in addition, have no military solutions. As the experience of Iraq has shown, force without right engenders chaos, not an exit from a crisis situation and hence my conviction that there are currently no weighty grounds for comparisons with the prehistory of the Second World War. It is precisely now that the significance of diplomacy increases, including network diplomacy and a quest for the broadest possible consensus on any issue. This can be seen both from the efforts for an exit from the crisis being exerted in a broad format of G20 summits and in the case of Afghanistan, where we’re witnessing the tendency for a genuine internationalization of settlement, including maximum use of the regional factor, which we have always advocated.

Of course, this does not mean that the world is insured against armed conflicts in principle. Economic upheavals may provoke an exacerbation of certain local conflicts. It can’t be ruled out that some countries may be tempted to use “military doping” to “restart” their economies. Although no one knows what the technological basis of the next stage in global economic development will be right now, I do not think that militarization will have a decisive say here. Simply we all face entirely different tasks, largely determined by the idea of sustainable development. We are going through a systemic crisis of global governance – and rather than dangerous stimulators the economy needs comprehensive remedies. We think that bringing the task of solving global problems, including overcoming poverty, into national development strategies as their component can serve as an alternative to spending on war.

The present global crisis provides a unique opportunity not only to improve the world financial and economic system, but also to shape a positive agenda for the entire international community. It literally pushes everyone toward collective action. Moreover, restructuring the world financial architecture, in our opinion, will aid the further de-ideologization and demilitarization of international relations, which will create additional guarantees against the origination of large-scale armed conflicts in the world.

Question:  Does Russia have any long-term foreign policy allies? Or is your country in a hostile relationship with the entire world?

Sergey Lavrov:  I don’t know what made you formulate your question in this way, but I will try my best to help you understand what Russia’s relations with its partners are.

Like most states, Russia pursues a multivector foreign policy. At its base lies a clear understanding of our capabilities and responsibility, multiplied by common sense and readiness for equal and mutually advantageous cooperation with all who are so disposed. The immense geography of Russia, its special role in ensuring international security, and the global interests of our country predetermine that we have been able to form partner-like relations with most states around the world.
In this connection I would also like to say that the contemporary international life with its increased complexity and dynamics requires creative solutions that are easier to find through network diplomacy rather than entangling military-political alliances with their burdensome rigid commitments. What we must talk about today, is partners who pursue some or other coinciding interests rather than uniting against other countries. Overall, we consider that the foundations for bloc policy have disappeared after the end of the Cold War, and that attempts to foist on everyone the “you’re either with us or against us” principle no longer work. As a result flexible coalitions are being formed everywhere in whose framework states increasingly grasp the need to be guided by ideology-free national interests and a common understanding of collective interests.

Even much deeper relationships bind us with a number of states, big and small. With the diversity of applicable formulas for determination of their quality the common yardstick is mutual interest in moving from the coordination of positions to coordinated or joint action in dealing with specific international problems.
We are convinced that multilateral diplomacy is most fully conducive to securing the national interests of Russia in the foreign policy domain. Such collaborative mechanisms involving Russia as the CSTO, EurAsEC, SCO, BRIC, CIS, the financial “twenty,” the G8, and the multilateral formats for resolving the situation surrounding the Iranian nuclear program and dealing with the Korean Peninsula nuclear problem are proving their effectiveness today. There are plenty of examples. So that Russia plays an active and constructive role in international affairs.

Question:  According to a poll conducted by GlobeScan, two-thirds of adult Russians believe that Russia plays a positive role in the world. But far from everyone shares this opinion outside of Russia, where recent developments (such as the war with Georgia and the irregularities in the gas provision to Europe) have tipped the scale in the negative direction. How do you assess Russia’s role in the world? What’s your attitude to the results of the poll?

Sergey Lavrov:  The fact that two-thirds of adult Russians positively assess the role of our country in the international arena we believe attests to Russia’s foreign policy being the object of broad consensus in society, and bears out the correctness of the independent foreign policy course chosen by us toward international cooperation on the broadest range of issues. We are also open for a substantive discussion on foreign policy issues with those who criticize our line. In particular, this is the aim behind the efforts of the Russian leadership to impart to the country’s foreign policy a maximally transparent character and to engage a broad expert and political science community in the foreign policy process.

That Russia through its consistent efforts in recent years has returned to the international arena as a leading world power is fully in line with the centuries-old traditions of our country. I want to stress that the most important priority of Russian diplomacy is to establish favorable external conditions for ongoing internal development. Furthermore, Russia acts enterprisingly, fully aware of its responsibility in international affairs and guided by international law and its treaty obligations.

I would like to give as an example the initiative to craft and conclude a European Security Treaty, designed to help shape a positive agenda in Euro-Atlantic politics and create an open system of collective security across the space from Vancouver to Vladivostok. The accomplishment of this task would be a major step in breaking with Cold War ideology and policies.

There are quite a few other evidences of our constructive role in questions of security. Loyal to the principles of regional conflict settlement by politico-diplomatic methods on the basis of engagement of all concerned parties, Russia makes a substantial contribution to international efforts on Nagorno Karabakh, Transdniestria, Middle East settlement and a number of other issues.

Of course, we are not insured either against differences of opinion with other states or against irresponsible actions by the leaderships of some of them. Naturally it does not suit us that biased media campaigns attempt to deny us the right to uphold our lawful interests, to take and pursue sovereign decisions in the realm of national security and to protect our citizens and the principles of international law. This applies directly to the two situations that you have mentioned. Sadly, truth also turned out to be among victims. They harmed our image, but failed to discredit the constructive role of Russia in world politics on the whole. Rather, they discredited themselves, primarily in Russian eyes, the western media that acted as the subservient weapon of information war. Incidentally, the signals of a wish to cooperate that we have been receiving from our western partners in the last few months also attest to this. When some try to tell us about a crisis in our relations with the West then what crisis, we would like to know? We cooperate in all formats even more closely and actively than we did before. Those who only recently spoke in favor of “freezing” cooperation with us, now suggest its “unfreezing.” We stand ready, but solely on an honest, equal basis, without double standards.

Question:  What danger does the NATO bloc present for Russia? Are new cold wars to be expected? Why does anti-American sentiment prevail in Russia?

Sergey Lavrov:  Russia does not inherently see the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a source of danger. For us NATO is one of the objective key factors determining the state of security in the North-Atlantic region, including near our borders.

It is obvious that problems arise when members of NATO revert to the confrontational logic of the Cold War, when rollbacks to bloc policy occur. Alas, the manifestations of this are not few – we are disturbed by the continuing, and inexplicable from the viewpoint of pan-European security, striving of the alliance toward expansion, toward erosion of the norms of international law and the role of the UN Security Council in respect of the criteria for use of its power potential along with its simultaneous claim to a global role, the NATO nations’ avoiding ratification of the adapted CFE Treaty, attempts to whitewash the military adventure against South Ossetia by the Saakashvili regime and the plans to rearm it.

We speak openly and bluntly about our concerns. We indicate to the NATO partners that alliance expansion moves seriously complicate our interaction and certainly do not strengthen regional and global security in any way. Obviously Russia cannot ignore NATO countries’ military infrastructure moving closer to its borders: the expansion is accompanied by the introduction of air patrolling, airfield modernization and the creation of bases within the territories of new member states. All of this will undoubtedly be factored comprehensively into our foreign policy and military planning from the viewpoint of ensuring the national security of Russia.
The recent cooling of our relations with NATO, caused by the alliance’s one-sided stance on the Caucasus crisis and refusal to even debate the reasons for it, exposes clear problems in our dialogue. But we are not going to slide to confrontation. The common global risks and challenges for us all give us no right to do so. Russia is disposed towards a search for constructive solutions and towards joint work.

We favor the reinforcement of trust in Russia-NATO relations and oppose the creation of new dividing lines in Europe. I would like to believe that NATO is not interested in re-embracing the spirit and logic of “zero sum games” or in seeing zones with various levels of security appear on the European continent.
Yet our partners in the Russia-NATO Council ought to understand that an inadequate recognition of Russian interests objectively narrows the field for interaction. On the contrary, the cooperation horizons will expand if the vector of NATO’s development is motivated not by projects from the political past, but by the requirement in joint efforts for ensuring security in its contemporary meaning. If NATO does not singlehandedly try to build security in the world for itself only, but takes a course toward intrinsically blending its own arrangements into a global system of international security that meets the challenges of today, then the prospects of our relationship will be predictable.

The future of military-political stability in Europe will largely depend on how consistently Russia and the NATO member countries stick to the principle of the indivisibility of security, fixed in the system-forming documents for our relationship – the 1997 Founding Act and the 2002 Rome Declaration. This primarily concerns the obligation not to secure oneself at another’s expense.

We are convinced that given the partners’ political will the Russia-NATO Council can turn into one of the most important load-bearing pillars of Euro-Atlantic security cooperation and become a long-term element in the world’s emerging system of consensus politics.

As to a new Cold War, this is the fruit of an inert imagination of sensation prone journalists or politically involved “experts.” In the present realities of a globalizing world, where we are all faced with the same transfrontier challenges and threats, there are no objective grounds for this. Although the ideological schism is overcome, the task still remains to draw a political line under the transition period from bipolar confrontation to more fair, equitable and democratic world arrangements. It is necessary to solidify trust and reach agreement concerning a common understanding of the essence of the modern historical epoch. We consider that an endeavor to transform global governance structures, ensure security and overcome the world economic and financial crisis creates the necessary conditions for this.

Now about a supposedly widespread negative sentiment in Russia toward the United States, assessments which I think are heavily distorted. (I hope that, asking your question, you did not regard complete agreement with what Washington does as a criterion for the absence of anti-Americanism.) I do not feel anti-Americanism in our country. It’s another matter that many of the moves undertaken by Washington on the international stage in recent years received an ambiguous evaluation in the world, particularly in Russian political circles and among ordinary citizens. For example, I cannot imagine what other reaction of the Russian population Washington counted upon by announcing plans to deploy elements of a US global missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. If these projects were prompted by the US military, then they could not have failed to see how the Russian military would react to them.

The essence of our policy in relations with the US is to demonstrate to the Americans the advantage of collective efforts on the basis of respect for the lawful interests of each other and all members of the world community in comparison with unilateral power decisions which ultimately always turn out to be self-defeating. Therefore, even if there are critical voices heard in the Russian media against the United States, I would not attribute them to manifestations of anti-Americanism, but to a striving to construct a frank dialogue. It is such an honest and open dialogue that has proven its necessity and usefulness many times. By the way, we had it in the period of dйtente, but it was then lost.

Question:  Does the recognition by Russia of Abkhazia and South Ossetia mean that Russia’s national republics have an analogous right to independence from Russia if they want it?

Sergey Lavrov:  Russia has always stood for the strict observance of international law and continues to do so. That’s exactly how our reaction to the events in South Ossetia should be assessed. The Saakashvili regime carried out an attack on the Russian peacekeepers that were there on legal grounds with an international mandate recognized by the OSCE and on the peaceful inhabitants of South Ossetia, among whom there were Russian citizens. According to international law, this was tantamount to an attack on the Russian Federation. Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations recognizes the inalienable right of a state to self-defense in the event of an armed attack on it.

Speaking of the roots of the conflicts, South Ossetia and Abkhazia have quite legitimately – under a USSR law of April 3, 1990 – exercised self-determination and seceded from Georgia. The lawfulness of this cannot be disputed because Georgia itself seceded from the USSR on the basis of the same law. South Ossetia and Abkhazia held referendums, their peoples declared independence, adopted constitutions, and created parliaments and governments. The Tbilisi authorities unleashed a war against them during the breakup of the USSR, but suffered defeat. There were settlement agreements concluded, with approval from the UN and OSCE. For the last fifteen years, South Ossetia and Abkhazia as the recognized parties in conflict possessed a certain juridical personality – an entitlement to participate in international intercourse. The constitution of present-day Georgia ceased to operate on their territory.

In general, unlike the western sponsors of independent Kosovo, we recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia not for geopolitical purposes, but in the interests of security and the very survival of the Abkhaz and South Ossetian peoples and of regional stability as a whole. By the way, after the 1999 accords no one attacked Kosovo; Belgrade was fully compliant with those accords, as confirmed in UNSCR 1244. In fact, it was the Pristina authorities that engaged in violating this resolution. In contrast, the Georgian leaders after the conclusion in the early 1990s of the agreements on settlement of the Abkhaz and South Ossetian conflicts continuously violated them, resorted to numerous provocations, and repeatedly attempted to subdue South Ossetia by armed action. Way back in August 2004, Saakashvili made an armed attack on South Ossetia, but was then quickly stopped. After this he was helped to arm himself to the teeth, in violation of the OSCE and EU codes, and last summer he imagined that now he had enough strength. The decision of the NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008, proclaiming that “Georgia and Ukraine will become members of NATO,” likewise played a provocative role. This created a sense of all-permissiveness and impunity in Saakashvili. Also, revealingly, Ukraine became one of the chief suppliers to the Georgian regime of weapons that were used to kill peacekeepers, civilians and to destroy Tskhinval and South Ossetian villages. Therefore when attempts are currently being made to rearm the Georgian army, when NATO exercises are being planned in Georgia, we cannot but wonder just what aims the alliance pursues. Recall that NATO exercises were last held in Georgia in July 2008, a couple of weeks before the attack on South Ossetia.

With respect to the principle of territorial integrity the 1970 UN Declaration emphasizes that a state possesses territorial integrity, if it observes the rights of all the peoples living on its territory. Saakashvili trampled under foot this principle, ordered to kill people whom he considered citizens of his country and thus personally undermined the territorial integrity of Georgia.

In Russia the rights of all its peoples are observed. According to our Constitution, all subjects of the Russian Federation are part of Russia and live by its laws.

Question:  Please help me sort out western values. After the secret prisons and tortures at Guantanamo, Georgian democracy, Baltic discrimination, Iraq war, etc. I’m completely mixed up. Perhaps they do not exist at all?

Sergey Lavrov:  I am profoundly convinced that intransient values exist, on which human civilization actually rests. You can’t divide them into western and eastern, African, Asian or European. They’re common values. If you like, this is the moral foundation of modern society’s life, the “cement” that must fasten all nations, peoples and ethnic groups together.

I mean the so called traditional values that are inculcated in each human being, and then also by all world religions – honesty, an awareness of one’s own worth, a sense of shame, responsibility to one’s people, and a liking for hard work. To my mind, the great English writer George Orwell gave a precise definition to this assortment of values, by calling it common decency.

We were not surprised when British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, speaking on the G20 summit’s eve, March 31, suddenly referred to traditional values as the “lifebuoy” with the help of which a global market economy devoid of morality would be able to swim ashore. For us this thought is not new. Russia has long since been advocating the need to strengthen the moral principles in international relations, seeking to ensure the abandonment of double standards. 
Unfortunately, many of our partners pretend not to be hearing us. For almost twenty years we have been speaking about the discrimination against the Russian-speaking population in the Baltic states. The situation there not only has not undergone any radical change, but it is precisely from there that a new wave of xenophobia is beginning to spread across Europe, that of rejecting “aliens.”

We have also indicated repeatedly that the current political regime in Georgia is not, mildly speaking, a model of morality. It took an act of aggression against a whole people, leading to a massive loss of life, to recognize this obvious truth at last. And one can learn about how matters stand regarding Georgian democracy and freedom of speech from the assessments given by Council of Europe experts (which, for some reason, the western media keep mum on), and the reports of Georgia’s ombudsman, who is not always allowed into the Georgian parliament.

Secret prisons, Guantanamo, NATO’s bombing of Serbia, the war against Iraq, purportedly to eliminate nonexistent nuclear weapons (and, by the way, refusal to declassify documents on the preparation of that war), the “color revolutions” in the post-Soviet area – these are all not merely examples of gross human rights abuses, but also of trampling upon the norms of ethics and morality.

These phenomena are dangerous in being able to trigger a chain reaction: if someone is permitted to do something, then others should be allowed too. They have begun to rewrite history, to make heroes of the Nazis, to denigrate the liberators of Europe from fascism – that is, do things that stand entirely on the other side of good and evil.

The best means to promote democracy and human rights is one’s own example – many now talk about this in Europe and the US alike.
Russia has already initiated a debate on the inseparable connection between traditional values and human rights within the framework of international organizations. We hope that the discussion of this theme, having evoked a keen response in many states, will continue in UN Human Rights Council sessions, in UNESCO and in the Council of Europe.

Question:  After the April events of 2007, when by decision of the nationalist government of Estonia, a monument to Soviet soldiers was relocated, Russia sharply reduced transit through that country, which hit primarily Russians working in this sector and left without jobs. Workers of the indigenous nationality suffered far less. It has turned out that the opponents of the relocation have suffered twice. We wonder if Russia’s going to continue to support its compatriots by such measures?

Sergey Lavrov:  I think you will agree that the Russian compatriots’ situation in Estonia cannot be seen as comfortable and up to civilized standards. Over 110000 of them are still deprived of Estonian citizenship and a majority of rights, including the right to participate in elections. Tallinn is pursuing a line on sharply reducing the facilities for obtaining education in the Russian language.

To this must be added the moves being undertaken by the Estonian authorities to actually revise the results of World War II – I mean the prosecution of antifascist veterans, the relocation of the monuments and graves of the Soviet soldiers who died liberating Tallinn, the simultaneous heroization of Waffen SS veterans, whose deeds were recognized as criminal by the Nuremberg Tribunal, and the conniving at the neo-Nazi marches.

That policy cannot but influence the character of our relationship. We will continue to consistently defend the interests of our compatriots, both in bilateral contacts and through international forums and our relations with the EU and NATO. We will be seeking the fulfillment by Estonia, as also by Latvia of the UN, OSCE and Council of Europe recommendations addressed to them. This is among the foreign policy priorities of Russia. Simultaneously we will assist realization by our compatriots of their natural striving to preserve the links with their historical Homeland, the ethnocultural distinctiveness and the Russian language.

As to the reduction of transit via Estonia you have mentioned, the blasphemous dismantling of the monument to the Liberator Soldier and relocation of the burial places of Soviet soldiers in Tallinn in April 2007 was received most painfully by Russian society, including business circles. Apparently they have a right to take independent decisions on the choice of partners for cooperation in accordance with their feelings and understanding of justice. These measures were received with understanding by the majority of our compatriots.

Overall, speaking of the socioeconomic situation in Estonia, it is necessary to take into account the impact of the global financial crisis, which has affected not only the transit, but also other economic sectors. According to the often-repeated statements of Estonian leaders, the influence of the “Russian factor” on the decline in socioeconomic indices for the country did not play a significant role in this.