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Wednesday, January 1, 2014

nterview by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to Interfax news agency, 21 December 2013

Interview by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to Interfax news agency, 21 December 2013

Question: Sergey Viktorovich, was the outgoing year successful for the Russian foreign policy? What were main things for the Russian diplomacy in 2013?
Answer: Principled assessments of the international situation, actions of the Russian diplomacy in priority directions were described by the President Vladimir Putin in his Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation of 12 December. For my part, I would like to make the following note.
The outgoing year will stay in our memories as uneasy period in international affairs. The world development acquired more contradictory and dynamic nature both at global and regional level. The process of the establishment of a new polycentric system of the world order was accompanied by the complication of international relations, escalation of global competition, rivalry of value navigators and development models.
In these conditions, Russia acted in a firm, thought-out and balanced way, as any large and responsible state should act, on the basis of the updated Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation approved by the President Vladimir Putin in February. Basic principles of the foreign policy course of the country, which proved their efficiency, were further developed in it. First of all, these are autonomy, independence, pragmatism, openness, multi-vector nature, consequent, but confrontation-free advancement of Russian national interests. Full story

Interview by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to RIA Novosti news agency, Moscow, 20 December 2013

Question: Sergey Viktorovich we review the results of the outgoing year, which was sufficiently important for the Russian diplomacy: there were many events, which have become a noticeable success, for example, agreements on Syria, Iran. What is the secret of your success?
Sergey Lavrov: If we review the main things in brief, all these years we have been following a consistent foreign policy. It is not volatile. It is based on principles of respect for international law, the central role of the UN, ensuring exclusively peaceful nature of conflict settlement, respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity of states, unacceptability of forceful methods of interference in one or another crisis bypassing the UN Security Council. These principles together with pragmatism, multivectoral nature and readiness to defend our lawful national interests without any confrontation are stipulated in the Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation approved by the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of 12 February 2013. The President Vladimir Putin in his Address to the Federal Assembly of 12 December emphasised sufficiently clearly that we do not interfere into affairs of other states, we teach nobody to live, but attempt to be leaders in defence of universal norms of international law, which I have already mentioned. Full story

Speech by the Russian Foreign Minister and his answers to questions from the mass media summarizing the results of the Committee for the Russian-Polish Cooperation Strategy, Warsaw, 19 December 2013

Ladies and Gentlemen,
We have held a session of the Committee for the Russian-Polish Cooperation Strategy, where we reviewed main areas of our bilateral interaction. Representatives of ministries and agencies of the two countries dealing with issues of trade, economic and investment cooperation, development of cultural, humanitarian and educational ties participated in the session.
We consider this format to be rather effective, and we are delighted to report that our work resulted in the signature (in front of your eyes) of the Programme 2020 in Russian-Polish relations. This is the first such document and I think that it will let us achieve more impressive results in our interaction to attach new quality to the relations between our countries, peoples, which we have always viewed as friendly and neighbourly. We wish to further reinforce these feelings between our people.
Programme 2020 consists of three large sections – all are related to our interaction on the international stage. We agreed to further develop and strengthen cooperation in the UN, including the reinforcement of the role of this Organisation in international affairs, to interact within the OSCE, the Council of Europe, within the ambit of the relations between Russia and the European Union, as well as to build up efficiency and trust within the framework of the NATO-Russia Council. Full story

See Also:

19.12.2013	VIII session of the Committee for the Russian-Polish Cooperation Strategy under presidency of Russian and Polish foreign ministers
19.12.2013	Speech by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the ceremony of issue of diplomas for special merits in the area of development of Russian and Polish relations, Warsaw, 19 December 2013

31.12.2013

Comment by the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Alexander Lukashevich regarding the legalisation of cannabis in Uruguay

31.12.2013

Comment by the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Alexander Lukashevich in connection with the visit to the Yasukuni Shrine by the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe

31.12.2013

Reply by the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Alexander Lukashevich, to the question of the mass media regarding the position of Belgrade in the South Stream project in connection with the forthcoming initiation of talks about Serbia’s accession to the European Union

31.12.2013

Comment by the Information and Press Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding new terrorist attacks in Iraq

31.12.2013

Comment by the Information and Press Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the escalation in Palestinian territories

31.12.2013

Comment by the Information and Press Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the further aggravation of the situation in South