MOSCOW, January 27. /TASS/. Paris and Beijing have come out in support of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s initiative of holding a summit of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the opening of the 28th International Christmas Educational Readings.
"The leaders of China and France have already come out in support of this initiative. The gist of the initiative is to consider in the most serious way, without politicizing, ideologization and allusions to electoral cycles, ways of easing tensions, which soared dangerously in recent years — ways of stalling the world’s further slide towards confrontation," Lavrov said.
As Lavrov pointed out, the international legal architecture, laid at the end of World War II, "will remain the key benchmark in effectively overcoming the common challenges and threats facing all peoples and maintaining global and regional security."
On January 23, Vladimir Putin suggested holding a meeting of the leaders of Russia, Britain, China, the United States and France (permanent UN member states) to discuss global problems. Speaking at the 5th World Holocaust Summit the Russian leader stated that the UN founding states can and must set an example of preserving peace. Putin said the summit might be held at any point on the globe his counterparts would find appropriate and that Russia was prepared for such a serious dialogue and determined to send corresponding invitations to the leaders of the quintet.