SELIGER, August 27. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia is interested in removing “double standards” and implementing agreements with EU and NATO more than others. Russia's Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov has stated this on Wednesday at the meeting with the participants of Seliger youth camp.

“The threats of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, drug trafficking, the food problem, regional conflicts should push us to acting jointly,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said while speaking at the Seliger-2014 All-Russian Youth Forum in the Tver Region northwest of Moscow.

“But our collective steps to cut short the global threats are hindered by the desire of the United States, the West to preserve their dominating position and artificially delay the formation of a polycentric multi-polar world,” Lavrov said.

“We were accused that the actions of the Russian Federation undermined the postwar settlement,” he said. “If someone set a bad example, these were our Western partners. In the late 1990s, the unthinkable happened: OSCE member states were bombing another OSCE member - Yugoslavia.

However, the top diplomat noted that the U.S. and Western partners were trying to artificially delay the implementation of multipolar world principles, although it is already a reality.

“The international relations these days have become extremely unpredictable and associated with tremendous risks,” Lavrov said. “The new model of the world order, a polycentric one, is based on the awareness new centers of economic and financial might are bound to emerge. And economic and financial influence yields political influence, of course.”

“The transition to a poly centric system reflects the trend towards a world order based on the cultural and civilization diversity,” Lavrov said.

“The list of problems that have to be addressed these days is not getting shorter,” he went on to say. “It might seem that such things as international terrorism, drug trafficking, illegal migration, the threat of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, food problems, epidemics and regional conflicts should encourage the world community to present a common front, because these threats are common to all,” Lavrov said. “But our collective steps in the international scene to counter these challenges and threats run against the intention of the United States and the West in general to retain their dominating position in world affairs, to which they have got accustomed over several decades, and to artificially obstruct the emergence of this multi-polar and polycentric world that matches objective world development trends.

On Ukrainian crisis

A ceasefire in Ukraine cannot become ‘hostage’ of talks, all conflicting parties should stop shooting, Sergei Lavrov said at the all-Russia youth forum Seliger-2014 on Wednesday.

“The task to reach an immediate ceasefire became the top priority as a horrible military crisis grew, an attempt [to attain a ceasefire] was made after the leaders agreed in Normandy [northern France] to work in this format,” the minister said.

“The foreign ministers [Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine] assembled in early July in Berlin, where they had issued a statement for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. Already two months passed since then,” he added.

Then Kiev began to put forward preconditions for a ceasefire, Lavrov said.

“Now mostly important is to stop so that everybody will stop shooting and Ukraine will offer all regions in the country to start immediately the domestic dialogue,” the foreign minister said at the forum, which is being held on a picturesque lake Seliger, some 380 kilometers northwest of Moscow.

“We are not interested in ruining the state, in having a place where human rights cannot be observed,” Lavrov said. “We cannot but respect the will of the Ukrainian people, but the people must have a chance to see not in the context of war but in a situation of armistice and ceasefire to what degree it is possible to conclude agreements that will not be imposed on them.”

“The things that are going on inside Ukraine these days, what the International Red Cross has identified as an internal armed conflict, prompt us to be guided by the approaches enshrined in international law - ceasefire and the beginning of negotiations,” Lavrov said.

“I have already expressed my attitude to the referendums that were held there. We expressed our full respect for their results and called for translating into reality everything that the people of the southeast had voted for through the negotiating process.”

“We would like to see Russians in Ukraine keep living the way they are accustomed to alongside the Ukrainians, Hungarians, and Romanians. We would like them to be respected and their rights guaranteed. I believe that it is our common interest to preserve a large Russian population in Ukraine, to make Ukraine comfortable for Russians,” Lavrov said.

On humanitarian aid

“Everybody recognized the importance of providing humanitarian aid,” he said at the national youth forum Seliger-2014. “We turned to the Ukrainian side with a formal notification of our intention to dispatch another humanitarian convoy soon. Yesterday, the presidents (Putin and Poroshenko) discussed this issue one on one. I had a word with the Ukrainian foreign minister.”

“We have reasons to hope that we shall achieve constructive technical and logistic solutions to send a second humanitarian convoy to Ukraine’s southeast in the near future. I am certain it will not be the last one. The demand for humanitarian aid is enormous. Kazakhstan and Belarus expressed the readiness to join us in our effort and to dispatch their own cargoes to southeastern Ukraine. The European Union officials made similar statements. We shall be urging the world community in general to take the most responsible attitude to the misfortunes that have afflicted the remaining four million people in the southeast of Ukraine."

On sanctions

Russia is not interested in the acceleration of the spiral of sanctions, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday.

"We are not interested in the confrontation. We are not interested in whipping up the spiral of sanctions," Lavrov said.

He added that inadequate attacks on Russia began earlier than the Ukrainian crisis outbreak.

"Russia comes under attacks because it speaks openly about its interests," Sergei Lavrov added.

On Ukraine's association agreement with the EU

The foreign minister believes Kiev intends to ratify the association agreement with the EU by votes of the 'old' parliament in September.

"It is strange that such decisiveness to ratify the association agreement obligatorily in September is demonstrated at the moment when the dissolution of the parliament is announced," Lavrov stressed.

"Color revolutions have serious destabilizing effect"

So-called color revolutions have a serious destabilizing effect on international policies, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

“Color revolutions seem to happen inside, but they are fuelled very actively from outside,” the minister said.

“If there were no such fueling, maybe, there would be no such revolutions.”

“The events have a serious destabilizing effect on the international policy. It was so in Georgia, and it is so in Ukraine,” he said.

International relations have become unpredictable and involve a huge amount of risks, the minister added.