MOSCOW, November 30. /TASS/. The threats of terrorism, climate change and the coronavirus pandemic clearly show the need for the international community to undertake unprecedented joint efforts free of ulterior motives and attempts to employ double standards, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a meeting with participants in the Dialogue in the Name of the Future event, hosted by the Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Fund on Tuesday.
"Today, we can see obvious incentives to build a truly multilateral partnership as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the threat of international terrorism, drug trafficking and other forms of organized crime, including cybercrime, as well as climate change and environmental protection. All this has a transboundary impact on mankind and our planet and certainly requires unprecedented joint efforts," Lavrov insisted. "And if all this was not enough, the coronavirus pandemic is the most compelling, if not the ultimate argument," he emphasized.
"There is no alternative to joint work free of attempts to push some double standards or hidden agendas," Lavrov stressed. The Russian top diplomat noted, however, that Moscow’s Western partners "seem unable to rid themselves of the notion that they have had for over 500 years that they are the wisest global leaders and others should follow the decisions that the West makes within its own circle."
"In doing so, they brush aside the fact that it was the collective West that created most of the problems that I have mentioned," Lavrov noted, pointing to the consequences of the Iraqi, Libyan and Syrian campaigns. According to him, in order to combat the existing threats, there is a need to complement diplomatic efforts involving civil society with traditional diplomacy.