We need collective world leadership, says Lavrov

The need for partnership among leading nations on the world stage has dominated an address by Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to a major international conference.

He said that looking for any single leader in the modern world is unproductive and tackled key issues including the world economy, global security and nuclear proliferation.

The comments were made at the ‘Russia in the 21st Century’ symposium in Moscow on Thursday.

“I stress the need for collective leadership,” he said. “It is only by combining all resources of the key states of all regions that we can succeed to resolve problems which are multiplying on the world agenda.”

“The principles and obligations contained in the UN charter remain absolutely topical and they deserve to remain untouched. This is the foundation of any political or economic architecture for the future.”

He added: “Russia’s foreign policy is entering a new stage, as is the entire state of Russia. The stage is made possible due to the work that has been done over recent years.

To create the necessary conditions for this stage in Russia, first of all we need to modernise the country in all aspects, turning it into a state which can fully realise its potential.

And basically we want to promote the same tasks on the international arena, involving all the key players in Europe and the Euro-Atlantic region.” 

But Lavrov also touched upon a number of problems on the world arena, and called for a unified approach to solving them. 

He said: “I believe that the international community wants to be very sure that whatever unilateral action is being prepared under the pretext of implementing the decisions of the IAEA and the Security Council should be really very factually substantiated. We have been repeatedly asking our American and Israeli colleagues, who insist that Iran is certainly involved in making an atomic bomb, to provide factual information about this matter. So far we have seen none.”