STOCKHOLM, April 23. /TASS/. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in an interview with Sweden’s television channel SVT he believed that the world is witnessing today another Cold War.
"I think the world now clearly noting that the Cold War is back," Guterres said. "But there is a difference between the Cold War in the past and what we are witnessing now."
"First, the United States and Russia do not control everybody like it was the case in the Cold War," he said. "We have a number of countries that are very active in the region - Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and others. It is clear that there are not two homogeneous well-controlled blocs."
"Second, during the Cold War there were mechanisms of dialogue, of control, of communication to make sure that whenever there was a risk of confrontation or incidents things would not get out of control," the UN secretary general said. "These mechanisms today do not exist."
"That is why the situation was so dangerous and that is why I am happy that things cooled down," Guterres said.
"I hope that it will be possible to find a consensus in the future for the situations like the one we had last week not to be repeated."
On April 14, the US, Great Britain and France delivered a massive missile strike against Syria without the UN Security Council’s authorization. According to the data of the Russian Foreign Ministry, the missiles hit a research center in Damascus, the headquarters of the republican guard, an air defense base, several military aerodromes and army depots.
As Russia’s Defense Ministry reported, the attack lasted from 03:42 to 05:10 local time. The Syrian air defenses shot down 71 out of 103 fired missiles. Three civilians were injured in the attack. Washington, London and Paris claimed the attack was a response to an alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria’s Douma.