Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov is holding a press conference today on the results of Russian diplomacy in 2017.
Russia's foreign minister noted that 2017 "has not been a simple in a geopolitical sense," saying that multiple hotspots of tensions have been remaining in various regions. He recalled that in the past months of the year, the situation has "aggravated over the threats voiced by Washington," including to settle the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula "through military measures". He pointed out that Russia and China propose to calm down, freeze any confrontation, military activities regarding the Korean peninsula's nuclear issue.
Lavrov also said about the US attempts to disrupt the implementation of the Iran nuclear deal. "The recent statements aimed at disrupting the implementation of the JCPOA have boosted neither optimism nor stability," the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza reported.
Top Russian diplomat stressed that Moscow has to respond to hostile actions of demonization on the part of Washington,adding that Russia refrains from a tit-for-tat approach in the bilateral relations.
According to him, Russia has completed preparations for pursuing in court the US over the seizure of Russian diplomatic property. "I have not mentioned here an unprecedented incident, the seizure of Russian diplomatic property. We are now launching legal proceedings, preparations have already been completed," the top diplomat said.
According to him, the Americans are known for their exceptionalism feelings, "and still rely on this mentality...but the reality is that the West is losing its dominance,.. there are new power centers and powerhouses emerging". "Unfortunately, our US colleagues and their allies still want to conduct their affairs with the use of dictate and ultimatums, they do not want to listen to the point of view of the other centers of the global politics. Thus, they do not want to recognize the realities of the forming multipolar world," Lavrov said.
The minister stressed that the US administration’s actions indicate its fear of honest competition in a whole number of sectors, including energy and sports. He noted that these spheres included the energy sector where the US was imposing its liquefied gas in Europe instead of Russian natural gas, noting that this "was much more expensive," and also the military-industrial complex and the situation with the Russian media in the United States and other countries, and also the anti-doping campaign unleashed against Russian athletes.
Russia’s foreign minister also commented on the US's policy on Syria. "The actions, we can see now, demonstrate that the United States does not want to keep territorially integrated Syria," he pointed out. "It was only yesterday that we heard a new initiative that the US wants to help the so called forces of democratic Syria to organize some border security zones. In fact, that means separation of a huge territory along the borders with Turkey and Iraq," the top diplomat stressed.
Russia's minister stressed the country continues to politically respect Ukraine's territorial integrity in borders that were defined after Crimea referendum.
"The bottom line is that Ukraine has subscribed to the Minsk agreements, which has nothing to do with Crimea, we need to push the Ukrainian leadership to implement what they committed to," the minister said. "The Minsk deal is the most important issue at the moment."
"[Ukraine] is a topic that is being artificially blown up or being made into more than it deserves to be, and is seen as a sharpening stone of the confrontation between Russia and the West, in general. I consider such an approach erroneous and completely politicized," Lavrov stressed.
Lavrov said that Moscow considers it important to calm the situation on the contact line in Nagorno-Karabakh. "Now we should take additional steps to stabilize the situation on the contact line of troops," he pointed out. "This will also contribute to the transition of a political settlement," the minister added.
According to him, solving this issue once and for all by one document is impossible. "A step-by-step approach is needed in this issue. This approach will show what can be done now, define the ways for which additional discussions are needed in connection with the settlement of the conflict and the status of Nagorno-Karabakh," the top diplomat said.
The minister said that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict can only be resolved by the parties to the conflict, adding that Russia can not have concrete plans for resolving this issue.
"We have made intensive efforts in recent years in order to summarize all the positions of the parties, identify overlapping approaches, bring them to a common denominator, as well as to offer compromise options on issues they cannot reach common ground. This work was carried out intensively and consistently last year. The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs have a common position on this issue, and the parties are aware of that. However, the decision has to be made by the parties," Russia’s top diplomat stressed.
