Русский |  Français |  Deutsch |  Español |   

На русском языке   

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin had a conversation with Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjørn Jagland, but I had detailed negotiations with the Secretary General. We discussed the whole spectrum of issues topical for the Council of Europe at the modern stage.

First of all, it is a strategic task and we value that Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland sees it clearly. It consists in continuing to secure the unity of the legal space for the entire European continent and to consolidate it by developing the contractual and legal framework. This is absolutely necessary to prevent new dividing lines in Europe. We support the determination of the Secretary General, who proposed the program of reforms which envisages greater scope of activity of the Council of Europe – not only traditional lines related to the support of democracy, human rights protection and ensuring the supremacy of law, but also the most pointed spheres of life of Europeans. This is related to the tasks of combating terrorism, corruption, promotion of social and economic development and contacts in the sphere of education, sport, and youth exchanges.

We actively support such disposition, will consistently work to make it embody into specific decisions of the Council of Europe and forms of its activity.   Full story
 

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

We have completed the main part of our negotiations with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. He will have a meeting with the President of Russia in a few hours. As always, our conversation was very substantial and honest. We are sincerely interested in the consolidation of the role of the UN. This is one of the main tasks in the Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation approved by the President Vladimir Putin on 12 February 2013.

Most acute and crisis situations of the international agenda were in the focus of our attention. We are convinced that we need to consolidate the entire global community around the UN to achieve establishment of a stable peace in all regions, the atmosphere of cooperation within the framework of which we may successfully solve all most topical problems of social and economic development.

We value the initiatives made by the Secretary General to that end. In particular, we discussed complex tasks to be solved within the framework of the problems of climate change. We are convinced that the situation will become even more unbalanced, if we do not strictly observe regulations of the UN Charter. Unfortunately, we are observing consequences of free handling of principles of the Charter and decisions of the UN Security Council. These consequences can make nobody happy. We hope that all the members of the global community will act in a more consistent way in accordance with their statements made in support of the UN and principles of its Charter.  Full story
 

Question: I would like to start our conversation from your last international contacts and, first of all, from your meeting with US Secretary of State in Moscow on 7 May. The day after he left Moscow, John Kerry made a statement in Rome that there is no place for President Bashar al-Assad in the new transitional government. There were also statements that the White House had not made its final decision about armament of the opposition and is waiting for the results of the investigation of the use of chemical weapons in SAR to make this decision. We know about the agreements reached between Russia and the USA in Moscow, however, we would still like to understand why we have heard other statements, which do not fit within the framework of the agreements reached the day before, as soon as the US Secretary of State left Moscow.

Sergey Lavrov: I will start from stating that we had very good negotiations, when John Kerry was in Moscow. He had a long conversation with the President of Russia Vladimir Putin, during which they touched upon the topic of Syria and several other international problems along with a detailed discussion of a number of bilateral issues. As to Syria, John Kerry provided the analysis that is very close to what we talk about, when spotting threats as a result of preservation of status quo and stimulation of the inexorable opposition to grab power, solve the problem in a military way.   Full story