SOLNECHNOGORSK /Moscow Region/, July 28. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expects many difficulties in the coming years due to growing threats, including from NATO.
"There are no longer potential threats, but real security problems, of course, around Ukraine. And we are fighting for our security, for our legitimate security interests, and we will achieve results," he told the Terra Scientia National Educational Youth Forum.
"Neighboring regions: the Middle East, Palestine, Iran, not everything is over in Syria, and in Libya too, Iraq. And the West, especially the Americans, does not hide the fact that they are very interested in extending their political influence to the Asia-Pacific region."
He added that both the expansion of NATO and the alliance's influence pose a threat.
Lavrov drew attention to the fact that Westerners "call this region the Indo-Pacific region on purpose to draw our Indian friends into this cooperation and make the concept more appealing. But in fact, all these Indo-Pacific strategies are aimed at containing China, isolating Russia, undermining the open universal cooperation structures that have developed around ASEAN in Southeast Asia, and transferring NATO's military infrastructure to the Far East — including the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, and the Korean Peninsula."
Heu called the creation of "all sorts of ‘quartets’ and ‘triples’ yet another destabilizing element. The US-Japan-South Korea troika, they are already planning more and more powerfl military exercises around the Korean Peninsula, around the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and when the US and South Korean forces work together, elements of nuclear weapons are already appearing there," the Russian minister pointed out. "This is very worrying, especially against the background of the fact that this ‘troika’ of AUKUS — the United States, Britain, and Australia — was established to build nuclear submarines for Australia, to transfer nuclear technology. And there are serious doubts that these actions comply with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons."
"There are many problems that are already emerging. And the fact that NATO is actively penetrating here [in the Asia-Pacific region], they are already going to open some kind of a special NATO representative office in Japan."