MOSCOW, October 20. /TASS/. Large-scale destabilization of the Middle East and North Africa negatively affects the international situation and leads to accumulation of elements of chaos, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a lecture on Russian foreign policy on Monday.

“The international situation is complicated by a sizable expansion of conflict zones over the recent time,” he said. “They emerge not only and not just because of inter-state conflicts, but increasingly frequently because of worsening national crises, including on ethnic and inter-confessional grounds,” the foreign minister said.

He said the Middle East and North Africa are a vivid example at the moment. “As a matter of fact, there is a fear that crises that emerged at different times in different countries can merge into one highly-explosive tangle of crises”.

“Large-scale destabilization of the region that we are witnessing already affects the overall international situation,” he said. “All this leads to the accumulation of elements of chaos, anarchy in global affairs, undermines the efficiency of the system of global management which is already not in its best shape,” the foreign minister said.

He noted “a sharply growing importance of common for all trans-border challenges, such as the threat of the spread of weapons of mass destruction, international terrorism, drug trafficking, organized crime, deficit of resources, food, mass epidemics, illegal migration among others”.

“Globalization processes have drastically enhanced the transparency of national borders, contributed to the destruction of isolated societies, in which the majority of the humankind used to live earlier,” he said.

“A bid of peoples to maintain and strengthen their culture, religious and civilization identity has become one of reactions to that,” he added.

“If this bid is not recognized as legal and justified, a risk of growing international tensions appears,” he said.

Coalition for fight against Islamic State possible through UN Security Council only

Lavrov said the formation of a coalition to fight militants of the Islamic State radical group (ISIL) is possible through the UN Security Council only.

"Many people used to prefer to ignore the threat posed by ISIL militants because the idea was to use ISIL militants in the struggle against Assad; but the goal of the ISIL radical group is to create the Halifax all over the world and bring the Islamic world under their control."

"This has been declared obviously clear; the Muslim world will be the first to suffer; the correct, moderate Islam is the ISIL's adversary. We supported both Syria and Iraq, strengthening their defense potential in a challenge to what the US had been doing."

"As for coalitions, let's us form such a coalition. Let’s adopt this decision at the UN Security Council. Subjugating the struggle against terrorism to geopolitical goals, punishing this or that regime is not a very correct choice; it is immoral and counter-productive and will build up havoc," Lavrov said.

"If we want to fight against terrorism let's do that honestly and on equal terms and coordinate the common strategy. If practical steps are taken beyond the UN framework, a question arises whether these steps had been masterminded beyond the framework of the UN Security Council," Lavrov said.