MOSCOW, November 11. /TASS/. NATO is seeking to extend its hegemony in Eurasia and the Asia-Pacific, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a meeting of a United Russia commission.
"In recent years, especially after the coup in Ukraine, NATO has been doing exactly the opposite: expanding, seeking a dominant role not only in the west of our continent, but throughout its entirety, stating that for the security of NATO members it is extremely important to extend its influence to the Asia-Pacific region and to form exclusive membership blocs there as well," he said at the meeting of the party's General Council Commission on International Cooperation.
Lavrov said the concept of Eurasian security, suggested by Russian President Vladimir Putin, aims to offer regional solutions to regional problems.
"That means it is the countries of the region, in this case Eurasia, that should bear joint responsibility for conflict resolution, preventing negative interference from outside. Such work is all the more necessary because the collective West, which has opted for a NATO-centric Euro-Atlantic architecture, has essentially put an end to the agreements that were reached in this context, primarily within the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, where the principle of indivisibility of security was repeatedly proclaimed by consensus at the highest level, and it was proclaimed that no organization in the OSCE region would seek a dominant role—all of this has been shattered," he said.
"Therefore, the presidential initiative putting forward a different approach to security—on the security of equals, on the kind of security that would be ensured without the involvement of extra-regional forces—is a very relevant initiative. It is already being implemented," the minister went on to say.