MOSCOW, August 4. /TASS/. Moscow pursues a peaceful and responsible foreign policy, calling for broad agreements on the peaceful cooperation between countries, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper published on the Foreign Ministry’s website on Wednesday.
"Russia has been consistently calling for broad agreements and pragmatic cooperation between countries with the United Nations and the UN Security Council playing a key coordinating role," he pointed out. The top diplomat noted that the strategic goal of Russia’s diplomatic activities was to ensure a favorable external environment for the country’s substantive development and improve the well-being of the Russian people. "Efforts to protect the country’s sovereignty and national interests and ensuring its security from external threats and challenges are an integral part of this policy," Lavrov added. "At the same time, our principles of partnership remain unchanged. Russia continues to pursue a peaceful, responsible and multifaceted foreign policy," he said.
According to the top diplomat, Russia seeks to boost "mutually beneficial and equal cooperation with most countries and is open to dialogue with all who are interested in it."
Lavrov went on to say that the coronavirus pandemic "accelerated the redistribution of power on the international stage." "The importance of non-Western centers of economic growth has grown, as well as that of political influence as part of the emerging multi-polar world order," he explained. "The West is reluctant to recognize this process and is making every possible effort - sometimes employing blunt methods - to retain its global leadership. The idea of spreading ‘democracy’ and ‘liberal values’ everywhere was revived under the new US administration. The concept of ‘rule-based order’ was also introduced, which in fact is a new formula for building a unipolar world revolving around the US," the Russian foreign minister added. Lavrov stressed that Russia was a stranger to such selfish behavior, which had nothing to do with normal international relations.