MOSCOW, May 5. /TASS/. Mechanisms of interference in maritime security issues in the Asia-Pacific Region are being created under US auspices in order to ensure the unilateral interests of the West in the South China Sea, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an article published in Russia in Global Affairs magazine on Friday.

"The United States and its allies have deployed significant forces to undermine multilateralism in the Asia-Pacific Region where an ASEAN-centered, successful, and open economic and security cooperation system has been taking shape for decades," Lavrov said. "The United States is leading the effort to develop mechanisms to interfere in maritime security in a move to ensure the unilateral interests of the West in the South China Sea region."

Lavrov recalled that Josep Borrell, the head of European diplomacy, had promised to send a naval force of the European Union to that region.

"No one is hiding the fact that this Indo-Pacific strategy seeks to contain China and to isolate Russia. This is how our Western colleagues interpret the concept of ‘effective multilateralism’ in the Asia-Pacific Region," Lavrov said.

He stressed that an ASEAN-centered, successful, and open economic and security cooperation system within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations helped the member-states develop consensus approaches that suited the 10 ASEAN members and their dialogue partners, including Russia, China, the United States, India, Japan, Australia, and the Republic of Korea, thus ensuring "genuine inclusive multilateralism."

"Washington then advanced its Indo-Pacific Strategy in an effort to break up this established architecture," Lavrov writes.

"At last year's summit in Madrid, NATO, which never tires of convincing everyone of its ‘love of peace’ and the exclusively defensive nature of its defense programs, put out a statement about its global responsibility and indivisible security in the Euro-Atlantic Region, as well as in the so-called Indo-Pacific Region. This means NATO's boundaries as a defense organization are being moved towards the western coastal regions of the Pacific," Lavrov stated.

"This bloc-oriented policy, which is eroding ASEAN-centered multilateralism, manifests itself in the creation of the AUKUS military alliance (trilateral military partnership of Australia, Britain and the United States - TASS), with Tokyo, Seoul and several ASEAN countries being drawn into it."