MOSCOW, August 3. /TASS/. Having mislead Europe, NATO is not seeking to ruin peace and tranquility in the Asia Pacific region, Chinese Ambassador to Russia Zhang Hanhui said in an interview with TASS.

"NATO has drifted away from the goals of the UN Charter, which envisage the development of friendly relations between nations and safeguarding general peace. Despite the peace and stability in the Asia Pacific region, NATO insists on conducting military drills and staging the so-called operations on ensuring free navigation in the region, which fans tensions and creates confrontation between camps," he said. "Having mislead Europe, NATO now wants to ruin peace and tranquility in the Asia Pacific region. What NATO is doing in no way promotes friendship and peace."

According to the Chinese diplomat, NATO’s expansion to the east, to the Asia Pacific region "does not stand up to criticism from the point of view of international law." "This goes beyond the concept of collective self-defense envisaged by the UN Charter," he said. "NATO claims to be an association for collective defense, which implements the right to collective self-defense, but continues transborder expansion, seeking to trigger military confrontation in the Asia Pacific region. There is no threat of force against NATO in the region, let alone an armed aggression. NATO has no legitimate grounds to cite the right to collective self-defense."

Apart from that, in his words, such actions violate the UN Charter provisions on regional agreements. "The Charter clearly says that the Security Council is the main body responsible for maintaining international peace and security and that regional agreements or agencies must be limited to maintaining peace and security in the region and relevant actions are to be sanctioned by the Security Council. NATO’s expansion to the Asia Pacific region breaks the geographical outreach frames it set for itself, which means that NATO is entering the sphere of the Security Council’s responsibility and violating the UN Charter restrictions for regional agreements," Zhang added.

The Chinese ambassador stressed that in recent years NATO "has been extending its outreach further and further," trying to interfere into Asia Pacific affairs. "For two year in a row, NATO invited Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand to take part in the alliance’s summit and has signed an individual partnership program with each of these four countries," he went on to say. "In 2024, NATO plans to open the first liaison office in Japan. Its plans to move eastwards, to the Asia Pacific region give rise to serious concern and strong opposition in countries of this region."