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Lavrov: benchmark values used as tool of pressure on sovereign states

Lavrov noted that amid escalating competition on the global stage there is a trend of using the system of values as a tool of pressure on sovereign countries
Russian foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (right) and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia Anton Novoderezhkin/TASS
Russian foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (right) and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia
© Anton Novoderezhkin/TASS

MOSCOW, April 30. /TASS/. Benchmark values in the modern world are used increasingly often as a tool of pressure on sovereign countries, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday at a solemn ceremony of awarding a diploma of an honorary doctor of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Academy to his Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia.

"Today many prominent international figures express the idea that inability to practise self-restraint, loss of culture of reaching compromise, attempts to secure one’s own interests at the expense of others are among the factors undermining international stability and ruining chances for sustainable global development," Russia’s top diplomat said.

Lavrov added that "it is recognized more and more widely that amid escalating competition on the global stage there is a dangerous trend of using the system of values as a tool of pressure on sovereign countries." He noted that these values are "by no means universal, but determined arbitrarily by the ruling elites in some countries."