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Moscow to cooperate with West along with Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Africa — Lavrov

We do not impose our interests on anyone and are ready to make concessions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
© EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV

MOSCOW, October 28. /TASS/. Moscow will cooperate with the West along with developing relations with the Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Africa, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with TV news channel LifeNews and Izvestia daily.

“An attempt to fulfil their, as they (the West) believe it to be, ‘a victory’ in the ‘Cold War’ was taken in view of the fact that the West had apparently got upset learning that there is no more Russia of the 1990s that said yes almost always and did not seek to protect its interests, believing that a union with the West will settle almost all our problems,” Lavrov noted.

“This was an anomaly absolutely inadequate for history, Russia’s mission in the world and the need to ensure an equitable and just dialogue on issues of lawful interest for us,” the minister noted. “When we began to protect our legitimate rights on the international arena, someone probably decided, 'For whatever reason, as everything became clear, but Russians cannot calm down.' This is bad,” Lavrov said.

In his words, these are “throwbacks of imperial mind” that is “particularly deplorable amid our numerous initiatives aimed at seeking balance of interests.”

“We do not impose our interests on anyone and are ready to make concessions, because we recognize legitimate interests of our partners, not getting beyond international law,” the Russian foreign minister noted. 

“If after all our partners would be slightly more pragmatic, more targeted at constructive dialogue than at imposing their values and their interests in detriment to Russian interests and values, many difficulties in our relations could have been avoided,” Lavrov said with confidence.

“We are still ready for dialogue,” the Russian minister said. “Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed once again that we are ready for dialogue with Europe and the United States, but we will continue efforts started many years ago to broaden our relations with the Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Africa.” “There are many promising partners there and we want to develop cooperation with them along with further expansion of partnership with our Western partners," Lavrov concluded.