Comments and replies to questions from the media by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov following his visit to Tajikistan, Dushanbe, April 2, 2015

Good afternoon,

We have completed our busy working day in Dushanbe.

First of all, I’d like to speak about the meeting of the Foreign Ministers Council (FMC) of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO). We’ve reviewed a number of important issues. We’ve agreed to hold a series of events as part of our joint preparations for the 70th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War. We’ve endorsed a joint statement that will be circulated in the UN, the OSCE and other international venues. We’ve also agreed on specific aspects of the relevant celebrations in Moscow and other CSTO capitals.

It is very important that these plans have received support from OSCE Chairman-in-Office and Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić and Head of the UN Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA) Miroslav Jenča, who took part in our meeting today. Both the UN and the OSCE have made decisions on the befitting celebration of the anniversary of the Great Victory, and we have agreed with our partners on specific ways of organising it.

We’ve also approved the plan for consultations of the CSTO members on foreign policy, defence and security issues. This is a full document providing for over 20 events. Under the programme for coordinating foreign policy activities by presenting common positions at international forums, which was launched a few years ago, we’ve endorsed a list of joint statements that our ambassadors and envoys to international organisations will draft this year in the UN, the OSCE and the Council of Europe, to name a few. All in all we’ve coordinated ten topics that will form the foundation of our joint statements.

We’ve discussed CSTO-OSCE cooperation. We’ve agreed that the CSTO Secretary-General and other heads of regional organisations should draw more attention to issues of pan-European security at OSCE annual ministerial meetings. OSCE Chairman Ivica Dačić supported this idea.

The Helsinki+40 process is going on and we consider it important to implement the long-proclaimed principle of indivisible security, to turn it into specific mechanisms that will allow every OSCE country to feel secure, on par with other states regardless of its affiliation with various political blocs. This is a very serious problem and the failure to resolve it in a systemic way is one of the reasons for continued conflicts in the OSCE space, including the emergence of the extreme domestic crisis in Ukraine.

In addition, we held bilateral talks with the leaders of the Republic of Tajikistan in Dushanbe. The meeting with Tajik President Emomali Rahmon has just ended. We expressed satisfaction with the development of our relations.

Many economic issues, the resolution of which is called upon to promote our cooperation, were discussed at the meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation last month. We clearly expressed our desire to see prompt and efficient implementation of the adopted agreements.

We are developing cooperation between our parliaments. Last year their speakers exchanged visits. Last autumn Moscow hosted an inter-regional forum which was attended by representatives of Tajikistan’s and Russia’ regions. This is a very important level of human contact, which promotes friendship between our peoples. The sides expressed satisfaction with the efforts to legalise Tajik guest workers and provide them with maximum comforts. We’ve already prepared four additional agreements that will allow us to resolve most outstanding issues. Progress has been made, and our main task is to take these people out of the system that exists in the shadows, provide them with full rights and protection and make sure nobody can exploit them.

We spoke about the development of military-technical cooperation, about Russia’s military-technical assistance to Tajikistan as a CSTO member state primarily with regard to the threats mounting from the South due to the situation in Afghanistan, which is degrading, despite any statements to the contrary. Now the Islamic State has already struck its roots in Afghanistan in addition to traditional extremist groups, including the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Islamic Movement of Turkestan and al-Qaeda. We confirmed our commitment to help Tajikistan strengthen its defence capabilities, both via bilateral contacts and CSTO decisions.

Today we’ve also signed a programme of foreign policy cooperation between the foreign ministries of Russia and Tajikistan. This is a traditional document that ensures coordination of our actions in international organisations and embassies abroad.

In conclusion, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon confirmed his gratitude for the invitation from President Vladimir Putin to take part in the Victory Day festivities in Moscow, including an informal summit of the CIS countries on May 8, the parade and other events on May 9.

Question: Talks on the Iranian nuclear programme are underway in Lausanne. Why haven’t the parties been able to come to a consensus so far? What, do you think, is the stumbling block?

Sergey Lavrov: I don’t want to get into the details of the negotiations. I went to Lausanne twice in the last few days. The situation is unusual, even unprecedented. The foreign ministers of the world’s leading countries have spent days and even weeks on end there. This shows that everyone is interested in ending the tensions around the programme as quickly as possible.

The talks were launched more than ten years ago by our European partners. The foreign policy leaders of Russia, China, the United States and the European Union joined in later. The talks have picked up speed within the last 12-18 months. Last November they yielded an interim agreement in which Iran and the Western countries committed to reducing unilateral sanctions against Iran, which are illegal to a large extent. The six mediators (Russia, China, the United States, France, Germany and the United Kingdom), the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and Iran agreed to spare no efforts to find a final resolution to the problem by June 30, 2015.

The matters being addressed today will be settled quite soon. Just a few more steps need to be taken – a half a step for some problems. We have agreed some things already. However, it was decided at the beginning of the talks that nothing was agreed until everything was agreed, so the talks are in a decisive stage now. We contributed to the organisational concept of the present round, and advanced the principles of reciprocity and phased action, that is, an understanding reached through reciprocal steps. When Iran takes a step toward compliance with international demands, its foreign partners make a constructive response.

What is taking shape now fully corresponds to President Vladimir Putin’s concept, formalised in his executive order of May 7, 2012, On Measures to Implement the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation. It says that Russia shall seek a resolution of this problem on the basis of the unconditional recognition of Iran’s right to a peaceful nuclear programme, provided it is placed under close IAEA supervision and all sanctions are lifted. That stage of the talks, in which I took part, explicitly approved these principles advanced by Russia. They make up the general framework that has enabled us to address many practical problems within the given parameters.

Again, we have until June 30 to elaborate a detailed and technically sound legal document that would provide a way to fully resolve all problems. At the present stage, we are coordinating a framework political agreement, all of whose components are already clear.

Like always, toward the end of the talks each party tries to force some more concessions from its partners, hoping that they are too pressed for time to offer resistance. We never engage in this, though some of the other negotiators do. I hope they will reach a consensus. The matters that Russia took a principled stand on have received support in the accords being drawn up. Our representatives, including my deputy Sergey Ryabkov, who has been in Geneva the entire time, are making sure that our interests are protected.

As you know, the sanctions imposed on Iran by the UN Security Council are supplemented by a whole host of unilateral, illegitimate sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union, and some other countries. These restrictions are the biggest problem now. The most heated disputes are between Iran and those countries on reducing them. We are clear on what the UN Security Council should do once the emerging agreement is finalised.

Question: Would you comment on the attack on the Russian general consulate in Aden and the evacuation of diplomats and other Russian nationals from Yemen? Might Russia raise the issue of Yemen in the UN Security Council?

Sergey Lavrov: It should be noted that the situation in Yemen is already being considered by the UN Security Council. A group of co-authors, mainly from the Gulf countries, submitted a draft resolution. Unfortunately, this was only done following the dramatic events in Yemen and the start of military action by the coalition formed by Saudi Arabia.

We would certainly prefer an appeal to the UN Security Council to precede any use of force. As things are now, we are trying to produce a balanced text not in support of any one party to the tragedy in Yemen, but instead with the aim of getting the Houthi fighters cease hostilities in the country’s south and getting the coalition to stop bombing while representatives of the different forces in Yemen, including President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi and the Houthis, come to the negotiating table, as was agreed long ago. I hope this principle will find support. We feel, at any rate, that the Europeans and the Americans both see that this is the necessary solution, as taking sides in the conflict runs counter to all the principles that underlie the work of the United Nations and the Security Council.

As for the Russian citizens, we have taken all necessary steps since the developments took a dangerous turn to contact the Yemeni authorities (I mean President Hadi and the opposition, including the Houthis) for the guaranteed safety of our diplomatic staff – the embassy in Sana’a and the general consulate in Aden. We have drawn up evacuation routes, informed the Yemeni parties and the coalition about them through Saudi Arabia, the coalition leader, and agreed on the evacuation routes and vehicles. The Russians have left Aden aboard a Russian naval vessel already. All Russian diplomats have been evacuated, as well as citizens of the CIS and some Arab countries who wished to leave.

Two Russian planes were sent to Sana’a which is land-locked. All transit countries and Saudi Arabia were notified in due time and we obtained consent for the flights and the evacuation of Russian and the other CIS citizens, and the nationals of other countries seeking to join. Regrettably, the planes were forced to return before they reached Yemen. One was forced to land in Cairo and the other in Djibouti.

We did everything necessary to obtain permission for the Cairo plane to land in Sana’a and take all passengers waiting for it, while the Djibouti plane will leave for Sana’a within several hours.

It is alarming that the district in which the Russian General Consulate in Aden is located was attacked during discussions to resolve this incident involving flights into the airspace of neighbouring countries. We are sure the attack was spontaneous but promises made to us should be taken into consideration when such operations are prepared. It is possible that it was a complete coincidence, of course, but we had repeatedly warned about the location of our diplomatic representative offices in Yemen, and we hope that no more such errors will be made.

The General Consulate is destroyed and was looted by Shi’ites. As for paying damages and restoration work, these have to be postponed. We will address the problem as soon as the hostilities end. But to put an end to them, the UN Security Council should come out strongly for preventing all violence without taking sides in the Yemen crisis.