PRESS RELEASE
Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov Meets Jorge Sampaio, the UN Secretary General’s High Representative for the Alliance of Civilizations
Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov received on September 8 the visiting High Representative of the UN Secretary General for the Alliance of Civilizations (AoC), Jorge Sampaio.
The High Representative informed the Minister about the Alliance’s work in 2009-2010, in particular, about the Third Alliance of Civilizations Forum in Rio de Janeiro on May 28-29, which demonstrated the growing interest of the world community in inter-civilization dialogue and helped to establish the AoC as a global initiative that extends beyond the framework of West-Islamic World relations. He also reported about the new plans of the Alliance for the period until the end of 2011 and drew attention to a new aspect in AoC activities – the development of regional strategies.
The Russian side expressed support to this initiative. Sergey Lavrov, in turn, dwelt on the questions of the implementation of the National Plan for Relations with the Alliance of Civilizations that has been approved by President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev and that envisions broad cooperation among government entities, nongovernmental organizations, and members of the academic community and other segments of Russian civil society in this endeavor.
September 8, 2010
