🎙 Speech and answers to media questions by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov following the OSCE Ministerial Council meeting (Valletta, December 5, 2024)
💬 A meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council is taking place in Malta. The organization has been in a very deep crisis for several years. It was created on the principles of equality, taking into account each other’s interests, and finding a balance of such interests.
The most important principle of the OSCE is consensus, as the basis for all its work. This principle was undermined many years ago. As a result, for several years now, foreign ministers have not adopted any documents, in contrast to the practice that always existed in previous years, when consensus was respected and not subject to any doubt.
We do not understand the goals that the West is pursuing by repeating aggressive rhetoric against Russia year after year. They blame us for all the problems that exist in Europe, and ignore the facts that indicate that it is the West that is violating all the agreements that were reached after the end of the Cold War. Since the creation of the OSCE, the West has not wanted to remember the principles that I mentioned. In fact, it uses the organization, including the institution of the chairman, its Secretariat, in order to advance its narrowly selfish agenda and “punish” (as it considers) unwanted countries. Today, we have honestly covered this situation and emphasized one important thing. Regardless of whether the West wants it or not, the process of building a new security architecture is in full swing, which is no longer based on the Euro-Atlantic concept, but on the understanding that a single Eurasian continent now creates opportunities for everyone to equally ensure the interests of each and build that very indivisible security that was proclaimed in the OSCE. But it was destroyed by the actions of the West on the reckless expansion of NATO to the East. There were direct plans (we know this) to embrace Ukraine in NATO’s “embrace”, thereby creating direct threats to security on our borders.
The Eurasian concept is based on the natural, geographical, economic and infrastructural opportunities that are available to all countries of the Eurasian continent. This is the largest, most densely populated and rapidly developing continent. It is home to countries representing great civilizations (Chinese, Indian, Persian). We expect to unite all these opportunities of our continent in order to advance a common agenda that will suit everyone.
The Second International Conference on Eurasian Security was held in Minsk at the end of October. Following its results, together with our Belarusian friends, we spoke in favor of developing a Eurasian Charter of Diversity and Multipolarity in the 21st Century. We distributed its elements among the countries that are members of the SCO, EAEU, CSTO, and CIS. We passed them on to the members of ASEAN. We will continue to promote this concept in dialogue with all other countries, including European countries, which are interested in joining this discussion.
The Minister of Foreign Economic Relations and Foreign Affairs of Hungary P. Szijjártó participated in the conference in Minsk. Slovakia is also interested. I think that other countries will also see direct benefits in this in terms of promoting their long-term interests and meeting the needs of their populations.
In Malta, together with our CIS colleagues, we issued three joint statements:
– “On the importance of careful treatment of military-historical memorials perpetuating the memory of the events of World War II”,
– “On increasing efforts to combat intolerance and discrimination against Christians, Muslims and representatives of other religions”,
– “On counteracting radicalization leading to terrorism and extremism”.
These are our assessments. Of course, we will have to study the issues raised during the discussion. Our Western colleagues almost unanimously take a purely biased position and pursue a line of confrontation, rather than cooperation and security, as the very name of the OSCE requires.
