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Russia knows solution for European problem - Lavrov
Published: 29 April, 2010, 19:57
Edited: 23 July, 2010, 19:02
TAGS: Anniversary, Breakaway regions, Conflict, Meeting, Military, NATO, Nuclear, Russia, Ossetian War, Politics, Europe, History
The equal, indivisible and guaranteed security of all states should become a real thing instead of being just an attractive motto, Russia’s foreign minister told a PACE plenary session.
Sergey Lavrov's press conference in Strasbourg Part 1
Security in all its forms was the dominant topic of Sergey Lavrov’s Thursday address.
“Instead of the negative and relative stability of Cold War times, we all need positive stability based on collective interaction,” he said, adding that “an indifferently correct neighborhood is impossible on our continent.”
“The principle of indivisibility of European security should be legally binding,” Lavrov stressed, adding that “relations between the US, Europe and Russia need a qualitatively new interaction that could help solve common and global challenges.”
Although questions of national security are beyond the scope of the Council of Europe, it could become a humanitarian pillar for the new architecture of European security, said Lavrov.
“Due to globalization and new challenges, the concept of security underwent fundamental transformation," he explained. "Nowadays it’s not about creating coalitions against enemy states. We are dealing now with trans-border phenomena and we can counter them only by collective efforts by all states, with the broadest cooperation possible, in order to ensure the security of the individual.”
Lavrov also said he believes it’s “symbolic that the PACE session was gathering ahead of the jubilee of one of the greatest events in the history of the 20th century that determined the fate and the face of modern Europe and the entire world, the 65th anniversary of the victory over Nazism."
The foreign minister explained that the catastrophe of World War II has become a powerful catalyst that has helped Europeans to understand that “there is a need to build a common home, where human rights would be protected, democracy would be strong, the supremacy of law would be guaranteed and social problems would be solved.”
He stressed that “Russia strongly opposes the rewriting of the history of World War II in attempts to fight Stalinism.”
“Our duty is to tell young Europeans the truth about World War II,” Lavrov said, proposing that guided remembrance tours be set up around Europe.
Answering questions after his speech, the Russian foreign minister also spoke about some other issues tied to global security, among them the Iranian nuclear problem, the prospects of a joint AMD system for Russia, Europe and US, and the situation in the Caucasus region.
Negotiations with Iran must continue
Lavrov said that Russia is disappointed by how Iran is reacting to the proposals made by the international community regarding the settlement of its nuclear issue.
Iran getting possession of nuclear weapons is unacceptable for Russia, the foreign minister said.
“We reject all violations of the non-proliferation regime and we reject, of course, the prospect of Iran or any other state getting possession of nuclear weapons.”
He stressed however that calls for the use of force against the Islamic Republic are unacceptable.
Everyone should understand what disastrous impact it will have for the region. The wave of negative consequences will reach Europe, not to mention the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus.
Lavrov said that Moscow realizes Iran is a “difficult partner” but at the same time he noted that persuading those who disagree with you is what diplomacy is all about.
According to the Russian foreign minister, the 3+3 Group “creates conditions and positive incentives for Iran to sit down at the negotiation table and simultaneously uses the UN Security Council to support the claims voiced against Iran by the IAEA, calling on it to resolve issues that have still not been resolved.”
Lavrov also warned that “in the absence of cooperation on the part of Iran, sanctions could become inevitable. The UN Security Council will discuss this issue in the near future.”
“There is discrepancy between threats analysis and US AMD plans”
Speaking on the prospects of creating a joint AMD system, Lavrov denounced US attempts to conduct the US-Russia dialogue on the analysis of common threats simultaneously with the AMD agreements with European countries.
“The discussions between Russia and the United States over the joint analysis of threats are proceeding alongside the transformation of the system [of the US missile defense] into specific agreements between the United States and some European countries. We see a certain discrepancy in this and wish to organize joint work after all.”
Lavrov reminded that last year the two countries’ presidents agreed to create a special group within the US-Russian bilateral commission, which would assess common threats, including the missile ones. However, Barack Obama’s administration has signed a number of independent agreements with European countries, which hampers the work of this group.
“The US is now building in Europe what it wants to build. NATO is waiting until the US AMD plans in Europe clarify, after which they will match it. Only after that, as far as I understand, will NATO take Russia into consideration,” Lavrov said, before adding, “We don’t give up hope, and will try to make up a new project hand in hand with the US, NATO and our European partners – but these two processes are parallel and do not intercross.”
Russia will not accept politicized resolutions
The situation in the Caucasus region – which is the issue of continues debates for Russia and the Council of Europe – was repeatedly mentioned at plenary session.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia will not implement the resolution, adopted by PACE after the war in South Ossetia in 2008.
“We can’t implement resolutions which have been dictated by politicized reasons,” he added.
PACE has adopted several resolutions demanding that Moscow take back its recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Lavrov noted that in 2008, during meetings before the war between Dmitry Medvedev, Vladimir Putin and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, the Russian side refused to recognize the independence of these republics, although it felt some pressure as the independence of Kosovo had been already recognized.
As a result, the decision was to sign a document on the non-use of force. Russia introduced the draft, but Georgia sent ten preconditions to the Russian side, among them the withdrawal of peacekeepers from the disputed territories and the recall of South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoyty.
Russia answered that the first step needed was to sign the treaty on the non-use of force. As the Russian foreign minister said, “you know what was next.”
After the conflict in South Ossetia, the Georgian president refused to discuss the status of the republics, Lavrov said it means that “the war in [Saakashvili’s] head is not finished yet.”
“When we responded to the attacks on our peacekeepers and civilians of Tskhinval and other villages, we had no geopolitical intentions. We were saving people,” Lavrov stressed.
“There [in Georgia] these minorities are afraid to address their complaints to the PACE, as Georgia can pull the plug on them. But they have a lot of problems,” he added.
According to the Russian foreign minister, Saakashvili “genetically has an imperial attitude toward minorities” who are living on the territory of his country, and that’s what he demonstrated in August 2008.
“We respect Georgian people. I’m convinced, that there would be a day, when Georgia would have a leader, who would be elected by people and who would make the interests of his people the cornerstone of his government. And leading among these interests is an ability to live in peace and respect the neighbors,” he concluded.
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29.04.2010, 20:03
“I could not stop my body from shaking” – WWII veteranRT presents War Witness – a special project dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the Victory in the Second World War. |
I wonder if he would be so bold enough to say "Russia strongly opposes the rewriting of the history of Stalin in attempts to fight falsehoods about Russia's role in World War II"? Russia is like an abused wife whose husband beats her, yet she still remains faithful and says "I know he really loves me." Russia, it's time to get out of this abusive marriage that you have with a delusional view of Stalin. Russia defeated Nazi Germany DESPITE the fact that Stalin was in control. Had a more sensible leader been at the helm you would have undoubtedly had significantly less losses. Russian prisoners returning from Nazi camps wouldn't have been imprisoned in and many killed. Citizens whose only crime was living in a Nazi occupied zone wouldn't have faced persecution and murder. Numerous military leaders wouldn't have been executed over nothing. Defenses would have been adequately prepared before the Nazi's invaded. But this history IS being rewritten in Russia today. Though Medvedev and Putin and others do get up and cross their fingers while saying things like "The atrocities of Stalin must never be repeated" his image gets paraded around the country on Victory Day. Of course, nothing is said about this. If you want Europe and the US to be enlightened to the USSR's role in the war then start by enlightening your own people to what you know is absolutely, without a doubt positively true.
I agree, Russia is emotional to the point of living in unreality in regard to some matters pertaining to WW2. But this unrealistic emotionality is not merely the product of its WW2 sacrifices – all of Europe and beyond suffered in the war, yet no one makes quite the same deal of it as Russia. The imminent May celebrations are not a military memorial – they are the elaborate rituals of a secular religion. Russia has deliberately elevated its WW2 experience to a level approximating mysticism to serve as a covering to avoid dealing with the facts of its Soviet-era national and international criminality. And now that the facts of that criminality have irrevocably emerged anyway, Russia gets extremely defensive over the mysticism it has created. Even its coined term, “Great Patriotic War”, is misleading. For Russia, it was not just a war of defence and patriotism, but an imperial war of foreign conquest, a way-station towards the imposition of Soviet ideology upon all the world. The Soviet Union was the only country to emerge from the war with more national territory than it had when it entered. If Russia just kept its Soviet-era mythology to itself, that would be one thing. But Russia does not do this; it constantly seeks to obligate others with its myths and when they decline to play along, vehemently accuses them of some pretty vile things, like “re-writing history”, of being Nazis, of practising apartheid on the basis of alleged Nazi ideology, of desecrating war graves, etc. etc. Russia’s neighbours don’t appreciate such thoroughly unpleasant outbursts endlessly directed against them. So when Russia’s Foreign Minister once again and for the umpteenth time obliquely accuses them of “rewriting history”, it is entirely appropriate to respond by evoking the adage, “put up or shut up” – ie, either provide actual evidence to back up those claims, or drop the accusations already.
The day is almost upon the world when Russia may very well be the last defence against the greatest threat to the world and humanitys march to captivity in this most cunning game of chess unless they too have been already been seduced by this new order..As sure as the dawn turns to dusk the hour is coming when soveirgn nations will be hated and the individual is no more.