Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement and answers to media questions at a joint news conference with Foreign Minister of the Republic of Türkiye Mevlut Cavusoglu following talks, Ankara, April 7, 2023

Ladies and gentlemen.

I would like to thank once again the Türkish officials and personally, Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, for the invitation to visit Türkiye and for a wonderful and traditionally cordial reception.

I was supposed to come earlier, last March, to take part in the Antalya Diplomatic Forum, but unfortunately there was an unprecedented earthquake in Türkiye at the beginning of the year.

Russia was one of the first countries to help the Türkish people with the consequences of this destructive natural disaster. Under instructions from President Putin, Russia sent over 200 rescue workers and doctors, an air-mobile hospital, an amphibious plane for extinguishing the fire at the Port of Iskenderun, and 36 tonnes of humanitarian aid to the affected areas. In Russia, we have the same proverb as in Türkiye – A friend in need is a friend indeed. We continue helping our Türkish friends to overcome the aftermath of this disaster. In part, we are sending building materials to restore the infrastructure. Our presidents agreed on this. Now relevant departments are dealing with the practical issues.     

Using this opportunity, I would like to once again express my deepest condolences to the Türkish people in connection with this tragedy. We wish an early recovery to the wounded, successful restoration of the damaged infrastructure and construction of new facilities wherever necessary. We will do what we can to help.

Today, we discussed key bilateral and international issues. We share the view that an intensive and trust-based dialogue between our presidents is playing a decisive role in the efficiency of our cooperation. In 2022, they met personally four times and regularly communicate by telephone. This sets the tone for further work in several areas – the economy, humanitarian ties, energy and foreign policy.

Our inter-parliamentary relations have become markedly more intensive. State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin visited Ankara in December 2022. The heads of our Federal Assembly have been invited to attend the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (PABSEC) in early May.

We reviewed the schedule for further meetings between our governments at different levels. We discussed in detail the implementation of bilateral strategic projects in energy that have traditionally been a driver in our relations. I am primarily referring to Akkuyu, the first NPP in Türkiye. Its launch will substantially upgrade Türkiye’s energy security. We announced that a ceremony for the delivery of nuclear fuel to the first generating unit is scheduled for April 27.

We covered the progress in building a gas hub in Türkiye for transporting Russian hydrocarbons to international markets as well. Our common position is that the unstable geopolitical situation corroborates the fact that the decision our leaders took last autumn to create this gas hub was quite timely.

Our plans in connection with the start of the tourist season and the humanitarian projects that the two countries are working on are quite good. All of that and much more will be reviewed in substance and in detail at the planned meetings between heads of the Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation.

Speaking of international affairs, we discussed in great detail the situation in the Middle East and North Africa, the South Caucasus, Central Asia and the Black Sea region.

We focused on the Syrian settlement in the context of the ongoing normalisation of Syrian-Türkish relations that started with Russia’s mediation. In December 2022, the first meetings took place at the defence minister level, and in March-April talks were held in Moscow in a four-party format, with the involvement of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The special services and deputy foreign ministers participated as well.

Other regional issues included Libya, which worries many after the country was destroyed by NATO’s barbaric aggression. The international community is struggling to piece it back together. Several attempts have been made by various EU representatives and countries in that region. So far, things have been moving slower than we would like.

We share with our Türkish friends a goal which is to ensure the restoration of unity of all political forces in Libya and use this unity to rebuild Libya’s destroyed statehood.

As for settling relations between the Palestinians and Israel, unfortunately, the process has been thrown back again as a result of numerous events, clashes and unilateral measures taken by the Palestinians and Israelis which have resulted in serious conflicts that are fraught with continuing aggravation of the situation.

We share the need to return to the fundamental UN resolutions concerning the principles underlying a direct dialogue between the Palestinians and Israelis. The issue is about the two-state solution format.

With regard to the South Caucasus, we stand for deepening cooperation between all of the region’s countries. We welcome the normalisation of relations between Armenia and Türkiye that started with our support. We welcome the efforts to unblock transport links and communications in the region and the post-conflict reconstruction of the South Caucasus. Tripartite agreements have been reached on all these issues between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan with the participation of President Vladimir Putin, which remain the main basis for further efforts.

We hope that some of our out-of-the-region colleagues will not interfere with these processes, but will encourage the parties to strictly implement the agreements that were reached within the trilateral Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani format.

We discussed Ukraine. Our colleagues are deeply immersed in the factual aspect of the matter and understand the root causes of what is happening. Once again, we noted that the Washington-led collective West’s destructive policy remains unchanged and, as has been declared publicly and officially, their goal is to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield.

This reveals the true goals that are driving the West, which are to remove an unnecessary competitor from the international arena, to “cancel” (as they are putting it now) a country that is trying to pursue an independent foreign policy in full compliance with international law and the principle of sovereign equality of states, which is laid out in the UN Charter. They do not hide the fact that when Russia is subdued (as they put it), the next target will be China or any other country for that matter that dares to act independently and is guided by its own national interests rather than those determined by the United States and the other Western countries that it has completely subordinated.

Against the backdrop of daily statements from Kiev, Washington and Brussels to the effect that in no case should the military operations be stopped and negotiations started amid demands that Russia must stop the war and sit down at the negotiating table, which contradicts these postulates, we understand that all of this is a rather dishonest approach. President Putin and representatives of the Russian Federation have made it clear more than once that we are not refusing to talk, but talks can only be based on taking into account Russia’s legitimate interests and concerns, which we outlined earlier. For many years, we have made them known in a dialogue with our Western colleagues (including our relations with the North Atlantic alliance) and they were disdainfully and contemptuously ignored, while we were told that what NATO is doing with Ukraine is none of our business.

When some international experts, representatives of certain countries try to put forward initiatives aimed at bringing Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table, it represents a symptom of the situation that has formed as a result of the US policy towards establishing absolute hegemony in international relations.

It should be about the principles that the new world order will be based on, the order which we all need instead of the unipolar world order overseen by one hegemon, as President Putin put it. Alongside the overwhelming majority of other states, Russia stands for the new world order that is based on UN Charter principles that are directly violated by the collective West.

We also discussed the implementation (or rather, failure to implement) the Black Sea Initiative put forward by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. It was one “package” (as he emphasised) concerning Ukrainian grain and Russian fertiliser and grains. The part concerning Ukrainian exports is being acted on (there are quite robust statistics on that). Moreover, the bulk of it is going to Europe at huge discounts and without sanitary controls, which creates problems for grain producers in the EU countries. Heated discussions on this are already underway. In fact, the entire Ukrainian portion of the Black Sea Initiative has degenerated into commercial exports of Ukrainian grain under special conditions, where standard requirements for such goods in Western countries have been dropped.

The countries that are in particular need and are included on the list of the poorest countries as priority recipients of humanitarian aid, including food, account for less than 3 percent of all shipments from Ukraine.

The Russian portion of this package, which is formalised by a special Memorandum between the UN and our country, is not being implemented at all. Our Türkish friends and the initiator of the entire package, UN Secretary-General Guterres, are sending calls and requests to Western countries, but in vain. The obstacles to financing, logistical clearance, transport and the insurance of these exported Russian products remain unchanged and are even getting tougher.

We will additionally discuss with our Türkish friends the future of this situation where the decision taken at the initiative of UN Secretary-General Guterres is being blocked by our Western colleagues.

There were several more items on the agenda. We agreed to continue close consultations between the foreign ministries. We have corresponding plans that are being implemented.

I’m satisfied with the results of the visit. We will maintain contact.

I will be happy to see the Minister in the Russian Federation at his convenience. This year, there will be many multilateral events where we will definitely have the chance to compare notes.

Question (translated from Turkish): To end the war between Russia and Ukraine, Türkiye took concrete steps to extend the “grain deal.” The deal was expected to be extended by 120 days but the final result was only 60 days. When these 60 days expire, what will Russia’s requirements be?

The war is still expected to heat up in the spring months. What are your expectations on this point? What will be Türkiye’s mediating role?  

Sergey Lavrov (adds after Mevlut Cavusoglu): The Minister has already listed all the problems that remain in the way of exporting Russian fertilisers and grains.

Our Western colleagues do not tire of repeating, despite the facts well known to them, that neither fertilisers nor grains are on the sanctions lists. Indeed, neither fertilisers, nor grains are recorded in the sanctions column. But everything else that my friend has just said is in evidence: disconnection from the SWIFT system, the inability to insure and reinsure cargo under normal conditions, the inability for Russian ships to enter Mediterranean ports and for foreign ships to enter Russian ports, and much more.

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and others who are “eager” to solve developing countries’ food problems can repeat like a machine that food and fertilisers are not under sanctions. This will mean only one thing: they are telling us that Russia must keep its food and fertilisers, sit on them but not take them anywhere, even though they are not under sanctions.

Having once extended this deal for a second term (120 days) and not seeing any signs that anyone can really solve these problems, and after tiring of appealing to the conscience of those on whom it depends, we were forced to escalate matters somewhat. We offered to extend the deal only for 60 days. We proceeded from the assumption that if there were no further progress in removing obstacles to the export of Russian fertilisers and grains, we would reflect on whether we need this deal now.

“Corridors of solidarity” are being implemented concurrently with the Black Sea Initiative which the European Union came up with and which imply exporting Ukrainian grain and many other goods to Europe and the EU over land. These goods enjoy the most favourable terms and conditions. In fact, they are discriminating against similar products made in the European countries. Major protests started there because the European market is flooded with cheap Ukrainian grain. All of that has degenerated into commercial exports to Western countries. If their countries are overflowing with cheap Ukrainian grain, which makes selling grain produced by the European countries an unprofitable proposition, they could give it to poor and developing countries. As we were told, this is the rationale for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ “package” initiative. As a result, less than 3 percent of Ukrainian grain is going to the poorest countries with the bulk of it ending up in the EU.

If they choose not to take the approach that Antonio Guterres proposed and persistently promoted in an honest manner, let them continue to ship products from Ukraine by land, rail, or river. The West has the appropriate logistics in place and they are fully operational.

Russia will work, if it has to, outside the Black Sea Initiative. We can already work with Türkiye and Qatar. The presidents discussed these plans. Russian exports to the needy countries will not be affected. I can promise you that.

With regard to when the “war” (the way you put it) will end, I would like you to be mindful of the fact that it has been going on for many years, starting with the illegal coup in Ukraine in February 2014 in violation of the agreement signed the day before and guaranteed by Germany, France and Poland. Back then, power was taken by people who openly demanded outlawing the Russian language and expelling Russians from Crimea. They started a war against parts of Ukraine that refused to recognise the results of that coup. As a result, these individuals had to sign the Minsk agreements that stopped the war. But they were not going to act on them and ignored the UN Security Council resolution that approved them. Former President of Ukraine Petr Poroshenko, former Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Angela Merkel and former President of France Francois Hollande were open about this. They bluntly stated that they needed to gain some time to flood Ukraine with weapons.

The West has long been preparing Ukraine to act as a real threat to the security of the Russian Federation. We remember how Nazism was nurtured in Hitler’s Germany in order to spearhead the attack on our country. The West began to encourage Nazi theories and practices in today’s Ukraine, which blossomed there after the 2014 coup. They sharpened these Nazi manifestations and intentions against the Russian Federation.

This is how this crisis erupted. The West was doing all of this to undermine Russia, to prevent it from cooperating with Ukraine so that the two countries could live together for the benefit of their peoples. This is the real cause of the crisis. It’s not that someone “suddenly” decided to attack the most “democratic” country on planet Earth, as the Zelensky-led Nazi regime is describing itself.

We are ready to talk based on existing realities and the legitimate interests and concerns of the Russian Federation. We are willing to talk while primarily keeping in mind our own security and the rights of the people in Donbass and neighbouring territories who represent many centuries of Russian culture, language, and literature. They want to live the way their ancestors lived. They want their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to continue to live like that as well.

Take a look at the laws passed by “the most democratic government on Earth” over the past several years. Instruction in Russian was prohibited and media in the Russian language, including media owned by Ukrainians and broadcasting in Russian, were closed down. Any cultural events that included Russian performers were cancelled. Books in Russian were thrown out of libraries. Monuments to those who created the cities (for example, Odessa was founded by Catherine the Great) are being demolished. All of that is being declared a “democracy.” We have a telling selection of what some Ukrainian leaders had to say about their attitude towards human rights.

It is imperative to protect, in accordance with the UN conventions, the universal right of Russian-speaking people (wherever they may live) to speak, to teach their children and to think in their own language. In order to protect the security of the Russian Federation, we are doing what we have been issuing warnings about for almost a decade now.

Question: You said that the Russian delegation suggested certain dates for a ministerial meeting during the consultations between the deputy foreign ministers of Türkiye, Syria, Iran and Russia. Will this take place in late April or early May? Did you discuss tentative dates for this meeting with Foreign Minister of Türkiye Mevlut Cavusoglu? Is there any progress in normalising the Ankara-Damascus dialogue?

Sergey Lavrov: As for normalising relations between Türkiye  and Syria, the very fact that they have been holding meetings between their defence ministers, heads of security services and deputy foreign ministers since December 2022 (this year they took place in March and April) shows that the process is underway.

We both emphasised that this process cannot be momentary. Such issues cannot be resolved in one go. It is necessary to develop contacts, build trust, enhance transparency and seek a balance of lawful interests between the participants in this process. We proceeded from this premise when offering our services. We are honoured that our friends have used them and will continue doing so.

It is necessary to prepare a meeting at the foreign minister level. The process is underway. It was discussed during consultations between our deputies, which took place in Moscow on April 3-4 of this year. The preparations include coordinating a date that will be acceptable to all four ministers.

Question: Earlier, our Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said that if the American side shows an interest, Russia is ready to hold a meeting between you and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during your visit to UN Headquarters on April 24-25 of this year. Has Washington asked for a bilateral ministerial meeting?

Sergey Lavrov: As for the statement by Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya you cited, words are often taken out of the context. What the media reported turned into breaking news – Vasily Nebenzya said Sergey Lavrov will be ready to consider a proposal to meet with Antony Blinken in New York. He didn’t say this out of the blue. He was asked persistently if Mr Lavrov was going to meet with Mr Blinken. So he replied that if such a request is made, we will probably review it. We regularly say this in such situations that we never reject serious proposals for a dialogue.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken asked for a meeting “on our feet” on the sidelines of the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting. So, we met “on our feet.” I listened to what my colleague had to say.

This is the whole point. Our position is the same – we are ready to consider any proposal for a serious conversation.

Question (addressed to Mevlut Cavusoglu): What does Türkiye think about the course of investigation into the act of sabotage on the Nord Stream pipelines? Doesn’t Ankara believe that the absence of a clear Western reaction could create a dangerous anything-goes precedent?

Sergey Lavrov (speaking after Mevlut Cavusoglu): I read another comment by a Swedish representative the other day. He said again that Russia could be invited to take part in this investigation, but not now, because they, first, want to find out whether or not Sweden itself was implicated, and, second, it is classified. How can you communicate with such people? If this is classified, it means they don’t want us to join the investigation.

Secrecy was also the main argument in the past, when attempts to establish the truth were made in the context of  incidents that in some way or other affected  our interests (be it the poisoning in Salisbury, the poisoning of Alexey Navalny, or the Malaysian Airlines Boeing crash in 2014).

Theresa May (UK Prime Minister at the time) said the involvement of Russian “spies” or “agents” in the Salisbury incident was “highly likely.”  In response to our numerous official requests, we were told they could not give us additional information “for national security reasons.”

The same thing happened after Navalny’s medical examination at a Bundeswehr clinic: we were told we could not have the full test data because this was classified information.

A similar situation took place during the investigation of the Malaysian Airlines Boeing crash after we supplied the entire amount of information we had, including the radar readings. The Ukrainians did not release any information from their radar systems. The Americans said that their satellites had seen everything and that Russia was to blame. When asked to provide the satellite data , they said the information was classified. The Dutch court decided that if this information was secret,  it would simply take what their American friends said for granted. There were many other cases, not to mention the fact that out of 12 people, who testified that Russia was to blame, all but one were anonymous “for national security reasons.” (That is, for reasons of “secrecy.”)

There is little hope that those who conduct national investigations will find the strength to disobey Big Brother’s orders  and make public  what they have found.

Question (translated from Turkish): After Israel’s attack on Al-Aqsa Mosque, tensions have surged in the region.  What can be done to resolve the problem? Are there any contacts to this effect? What does Russia think about this attack?

Sergey Lavrov: We have long supported the idea to resume the multilateral process of Palestinian-Israeli settlement. There is a universally recognised collective mediator – the Quartet consisting of Russia, the US, the EU and the UN. It is possible to hope for agreements to be reached within this “circle,” with the mandatory participation   of the Arab League. These agreements should be based on the two-state principles, as they are enshrined in the UN documents.

The Quartet has not met for a long time. The United States is blocking the meetings. Regrettably, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who should initiative such meetings, chose to “keep a low profile.” Apparently, he does not want to irritate his American colleagues. The Americans have openly opted for resolving this problem all on their own and reconciling the Palestinians with the Israelis. However, judging by media leaks, they want to do this on terms that have nothing to do with the principles contained in the UN decisions.

Question: The other day, you uttered an enigmatic phrase “It won’t be a long wait.” The world shuddered upon hearing it. Could you share with us how long is left to wait and what exactly should we be waiting for?

Sergey Lavrov: This was exactly the point of saying it for the world to shudder.

What I meant to say was that the truth would prevail in any case. There is no doubt about it. “Not long” is a relative term. But this will definitely not be a long wait history-wise.

Question: What can you say about the election campaign that started in Türkiye? What do you think are the chances of the main contenders? Which political force does Russia support?

Sergey Lavrov: Are you sure you did not confuse me with someone else? You’d be better off attending news conferences by US officials. You can ask them these questions.

The Russian Federation never interferes in internal affairs or even discussions unfolding in a particular country ahead of election campaigns. We invariably respect the laws of countries carrying out democratic procedures in accordance with the principles of openness, where observers are invited. This is a sovereign affair of every country, including such an advanced democratic country as the Republic of Türkiye.

The United States – which loudly and clearly, with or without elections, is saying that China must do this or that – is a different matter. The EU is also saying that China must either contact President Zelensky or use its influence with the Russian Federation. Similar statements were made earlier in relation to India. A mid-level official from the US State Department saying that India should correctly understand its national interests is an American-style statement. I am convinced that all normal people see this communication approach as rude. However, not everyone can say so yet.

In addition to such arrogant and unseemly (from the point of view of diplomacy and politics, or morality) statements, the United States never hesitates to use NGOs created by them, or to treat gently the organisations that they plan to use in their interests in a particular country. They do not stop at colour revolutions, as was the case in Ukraine in February 2014. They will certainly not think twice before doing so in any other country when they decide that they can benefit from chaos ensuing from the colour revolutions.

My colleague, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, told me they had invited the OSCE and the Council of Europe observers, who would provide their legitimate assessments after the elections. I am convinced that the Turkish side has repeatedly proved its ability to organise free democratic elections.