ST. PETERSBURG, June 26. /TASS/. The creation of a new security architecture in Eurasia, as proposed by Russia, will force external players to curtail their military presence on the continent, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing on the sidelines of the 12th St. Petersburg International Legal Forum.

"Being drawn into a new bloc confrontation in the spirit of zero-sum games is not the intention of the Russian Federation," she noted.

"The architecture formed on the basis of common efforts will not be directed against anyone, its parameters will not only ensure long-lasting peace, but also avoid major geopolitical upheavals due to the crisis of globalization, built according to Western patterns. It will create reliable military-political guarantees for the protection of both the Russian Federation and other countries of the macro-region from external threats, create a space free from conflicts and favorable for development, and eliminate the destabilizing influence of extra-regional players on Eurasian processes. In the future, this will mean curtailing the military presence of external powers in Eurasia," the diplomat said.

The Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman recalled that the initiative to create a new continent-wide security architecture in the Eurasian space had been put forward by Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to her, the essence of this initiative is to establish "a constructive dialogue between all potential participants in the future security system in the Greater Eurasia space."

"We proceed from the fact that geographical proximity, being on the same continent, encourages a joint search for ways of peaceful coexistence. Such a system should be open to all Eurasian countries that wish to take part in it, including Western European ones, provided that that they will abandon their confrontational course," she explained.

"If we don’t start working on a new security system now, this will lead to the loss of dialogue skills, those mechanisms that were developed and, in principle, laid down as effective, but were destroyed by the hegemonic aspirations of the West. This will bring problems that are much more difficult to cope with later than now," the diplomat stressed.