“X” commenting on a Telling Interview served up by SERGEY LAVROV in India, ……. with the highlights being impositions by Thuppahi
FILE PHOTO: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a joint news conference with British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss in Moscow, Russia February 10, 2022. Russian Foreign Ministry/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
This is a very good interview in English with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the G20 in India on 4 March 2023, though the Indian interviewee was annoying in the way he kept cutting Lavrov off before he could finish answering a question.
Lavrov sets out the context and history of Russia security concerns that led to the war in Ukraine, how the US does business with countries in the Global South by bullying these countries to vote in support of the US in the UN. He also raises the big challenge for the Asia-Pacific, which is not China, but the US, QUAD and AUKUS.
During the interview, Lavrov was asked by a member of the audience: “how does Russia circulate the strategic cost and benefit of deepening its relationship with China, especially its impact on Russia Indian relations?
Lavrov responded,
We have never made friends against somebody. We have excellent relations with China and excellent relations with India. The relations with India are characterised in the official documents signed by the two leaders as an “especially privileged strategic partnership”. I don’t know whether any other country has the same status on paper officially with our Indian friends. But this is what we believe is reflecting the reality – be it the economy, technology, military cooperation, military-technical cooperation, culture, humanitarian ties, educational ties; and we have relations with China – they have never been that good from the very beginning of the existence of China. We are interested in these two great nations to be friends, and we’re trying to be helpful.
It was at the initiative of my great predecessor, Yevgeny Primakov, that RIC was created: Russia India China (Troika). He initiated this and this was the beginning of the process which eventually culminated in BRICS formation and now BRICS is very popular among about two dozen countries who would like to join. But the momentum was ensured by the decision to create this troika (Russia India China) and you might not hear about this as much as of BRICS, but this troika continues to function. We met last year, and we are going to meet this year again at the ministerial level. I think it would be 21st or 22nd meeting already. Experts in economy trade and technology will also meet; think tanks people meet regularly. There was supposed to meet sometime this spring, but then our Indian colleagues asked for some postponement.
My feeling is the more they [India and China] meet, the better, and RIC is a platform for India and China in our presence – because they might not feel themselves comfortable being one-on-one all the time – to find some additional common grounds. BRICS is another platform and of course and we strongly supported India joining [the] Shanghai Corporation Organisation, including from the point of view of providing another place where India and China can cooperate together and look for some common solutions, and we will continue this policy.
We never engage in playing any country against any other country. And this is unfortunately what is being tried by some other outside players [US, UK, Australia and Japan] in the context of the so-called “Indo-Pacific strategy”, in the context of AUKUS, in the context of using QUAD, not for economic purposes, but trying to militarise QUAD. The idea promoted by our American friends of “ASEAN plus QUAD” is openly aimed at ruining East Asian Summits, in other words it would be East Asian Summits minus China, minus Russia. These are the questions which I believe you should address more openly and honestly. Those are the risks created for this region. Russia would obviously be in favour of bringing people together like we do in many other countries.
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Watch again: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks at geopolitical conference in India
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