MOSCOW, September 11. /ITAR-TASS/. On the sidelines of international forums, many Western ministers try to explain away sanctions imposed against Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview for the ITAR-TASS Top Officials project.

The minister said he felt no discomfort from work in the current difficult international situation. “Firstly, this is professional challenge, if you will. Secondly, it is rather my colleagues who feel inconveniences when they have to obscurely explain over the telephone or through our ambassadors why they are postponing a visit to Moscow that was coordinated. For God’s sake! Love can’t be forced,” he said.

Western colleagues feel the same discomfort about sanctions imposed on Russia over events in Ukraine. “At different international forums, ministers from the countries that have imposed sanctions on Russia, come up to me one by one, taking me aside and asking me confusedly to take it easy and understand; saying that they don’t want to but are compelled to,” the top Russian diplomat said.

“Maybe tense periods in international relations are inevitable. But they end sooner or later. And this one will be left behind. But at first everybody must get used to the idea that the world will not be one-polar any longer. Meanwhile, we have to see relapses and muscle flexing,” he said.