MOSCOW, February 03. /ITAR-TASS/. The 100th anniversary of World War I should be used to prevent any tragedies in the future and not to unleash information wars and falsify history, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with Serbia’s newspaper “Politika” on Monday.
“The 100th anniversary of World War I is an important landmark, which gives grounds for thinking about the causes of disturbances that the European continent was going through in the 20th century. We’re sure that this date should be used to prevent new information wars and political games based on the falsification of facts and to prevent the tragedies when the Cold War really became the last period of confrontation in Europe,” Lavrov said.
The events in Europe on the eve of World War I prove “where the manifestations of national egoism, the ambitions to strengthen own security and ensure own interests at the expense of another can lead to.” “I’d like to say the attempts to isolate Russia and push it on the verge of European policy incited the processes, which run into a catastrophe,” Lavrov said.
Russia’s active involvement in European affairs “is accompanied by long periods of calm and stable development. I believe that these reasons should be taken into account by working out ways to overcome crises in Europe”, the minister said.
A special organizing committee for preparing the events related to the 100th anniversary of World War I has been created in Russia, he said, adding “We’re taking steps to restore the unique ‘Russian Necropolis’ within Belgrade’s New Cemetery where Russian soldiers were buried. We’re thankful to the Belgrade authorities for attention to their memory.”