Speech by the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, and his answers to questions from the mass media during the press conference summarising the results of the negotiations with the Brazilian Foreign Minister, Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado, Cairo, 20th November 2013

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are glad to welcome to Moscow the delegation of Brazil, headed by the Brazilian Foreign Minister Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado. We value how my colleague has made his first visit outside Latin America to the Russian Federation ever since his appointment to this position.

Our countries are linked by old relations based on friendship, trust, and affection between our people. This year we celebrate 185 years of diplomatic relations. It is good that, these days, Russia and Brazil are convincingly building up, developing and intensifying strategic partnerships in various areas, all in the interests of our people.

During our negotiations today, we devoted our attention primarily to the analysis of the implementation of the agreements established during the visit of the Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff to Russia in December 2012. According to our estimates, we have observed significant progress and dynamic development of bilateral multi-profile cooperation in all directions, and the leaders of our countries agree on this.

We distinguished prospects of further development of political dialogue, taking into consideration the schedule of forthcoming contacts, including at the summit level. We discussed specific steps for improvement of the contractual legal framework of Russian-Brazilian relations. About 15 intergovernmental / interagency documents are being developed. We agreed to accelerate their agreement.

Brazil is the largest trade partner of Russia in Latin America. The two countries plan to implement the agreements between the presidents to bring the turnover to the 10 billion US dollars mark as soon as possible. An important role in the solution of this task is that of the Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation – another of their sessions is being prepared, and it will be held on the 9-10 December in Brasilia. In general, we reached agreements regarding the provision of political support to mutual projects in the economic, scientific, technical and humanitarian domains. We already have good experience of direct ties between our agencies from the economic bloc and, more importantly, between Russian and Brazilian companies in the domains of aircraft engineering, metal working, chemical, pharmaceutical industry, biotechnology, energy, including nuclear and other important ones.

We agreed to contribute to further direct contacts between business circles, using the opportunities of business councils created for the development of bilateral cooperation in Brazil and Russia.

We promote direct contacts between business centres, universities, and diplomatic academies. Today, Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado will visit the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and will deliver a lecture, which will play an important role in the implementation of the Memorandum on Cooperation, which was signed between the Russian Diplomatic Academy and the University of Rio Branco.

We have a substantial agenda regarding sports. In years which are not far in the future, Russia and Brazil will host the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and the World Football Championship. World universiades (in 2019) were added to the list of these events, and we will cooperate in their organisation closely (the winter universiade will be in Krasnoyarsk and the summer universiade in Brasilia). The largest international competitions, which will be held in our countries, objectively determine our cooperation which is as close as possible, and the exchange of experience in their successful organisation.

We exchanged opinions on ways for the further intensifying of partnership in international affairs. One of the closest and very important priorities is the preparation for the VI BRICS summit in Brazil in the first half of 2014.

We confirmed the parallel nature of our approaches in the majority of key problems of international life, including the importance of unconditional observation of international law, and respect for the central role of the UN and the principles of the Charter of the Organisation, including peaceful settlement of disputes and non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states. We expressed our satisfaction with our cooperation before various UN bodies. We agreed to continue our interaction in many important domains, including the enforcement of international information security. The UN recognises initiatives by Russia and the SCO on this topic, and new initiatives were proposed by Brazil and Germany, which we show our active support for.

We cooperate in issues to do with maintaining that our activities in outer space are always peaceful ones. Russia and Brazil signed a statement in which they affirmed that neither would be the first to locate weapons in outer space. We appeal to make this agreement universal. Now, within the framework of the UN, a group of co-authors, including our countries, are promoting a resolution for appealing to all members of the Organisation to observe the obligation of not being the first to locate weapons in outer space. We cooperate in other issues, including the reformation of international credit and financial institutions. We are acting in close coordination with other BRICS members and other like-minded persons from other countries.

Regarding our respect for the norms and principles on which modern international law is based, which I mentioned earlier, we discussed the situation concerning the international conference convention regarding Syria, and that concerning the settlement of Iran's Nuclear Programme (INP). We value the contribution of Brazil toward the search of ways for de-escalation of tensions related to INP. We expect that the efforts which are being undertaken, will prove successful at the meeting, which starts in Geneva today.

We agreed to continue to strengthen the cooperation between the Russian Federation and various structures in Latin America: primarily with a relatively new association like the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (SELAC). There are plans for the creation of a mechanism of political dialogue between Russia and SELAC, as well as for intensifying cooperation with other regional integration associations in this important, growing, thriving region. Latin America and the Caribbean is definitely one of the growth centres as far as the formation of a polycentric international system is concerned.

I am thankful to my colleague and all members of the Brazilian delegation for these very interesting negotiations. I expect that our meeting today will allow us to resolve the tasks set by presidents of our countries more actively and effectively.

Question: Which BRICS initiatives could be advanced on the international stage, in particular within the framework of the G20, pending consideration of the forthcoming Russia's presidency of the G8?

Sergey Lavrov: Our colleagues chose inclusive development and sustainable growth of the topic of the forthcoming G20 summit in Brazil. This is fully concordant with the agenda proposed by Russia, which was approved within the framework of our presidency of the G20, where the main efforts and documents supported by leaders were integrated in the search for new sources of investments in the real sector of the economy and for innovation growth and the creation of jobs – which means entwinement of development with the resolution of social problems.

Besides that, the priority of conducting the reform of the international monetary and financial system, including the completion of its first stage (which was coordinated in 2010 but has not ended yet), remains sustainable within the framework of BRICS. The position in favour of the implementation of agreements on the reform is objective for BRICS countries within the framework of the participation of all our countries in the work of the G20, where other countries (our like-minded persons) which are not members of this association, help us. I can mention Mexico, Argentina and Indonesia. This is a very important topic for the G20, established for the solution of problems in the way of overcoming crisis phenomena which have accumulated in the international monetary and financial system, which needs reforms.

Beside trade and economic issues, and problems relating to the functioning of the global economy, BRICS is forming a political agenda, and discussions between leaders on international problems are reflected in related documents.

The last BRICS summits established our joint position in several acute situations which are recognised as priorities in global politics i.e. Syria, Iran and the Middle East peace process. The same issues are reviewed in the G8. Of course, there are peculiarities regarding the positions between BRICS and G8 documents, however, we can state that the main factor of these approaches is well applied. In all cases, priority is given to diplomatic efforts, and the need to settle respective conflicts and crises peacefully is noted. Another thing is that these positions are not always confirmed in practice, while there is a field for interaction.

I have noted that, within the framework of the UN, BRICS countries promote their positions in many issues. Today we have already noted the importance of the resolution which would appeal to all States to observe obligations not to be the first to locate weapons in outer space. Russia and Brazil, together with Indonesia and several other countries, have already adopted such obligations. I think that, if BRICS joins this initiative, this will correspond with the principles advocated by this organisation. Of course, the topic of international information security, which is very topical now, is also a good vehicle for making BRICS, together with other countries, play an active role in its promotion – the purposes of the development of a universally applicable code of conduct in cyber space remain topical.

Question (addressed to Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado): The President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff firmly condemned the electronic espionage of the United States and appealed to the UN to adopt the leading role in combating it at the last session of the UN General Assembly. Did you discuss this topic with your Russian colleagues? What further steps will Brazil undertake to resolve these issues?

Sergey Lavrov (adds after Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado): Long before the known events of the current year which shook up the global community so much, Russia, together with other States, promoted the need to embellish the topic of international information security and Internet control within the framework of the International Telecommunication Union. Initially, we observed strong resistance to these processes and initiatives. They told us that we do not need to do anything and that the currently existing rules in the world will automatically apply to cyber space. However, the number of countries which did not agree to it, which have noted more and more problems due to the lack of universally accepted principles in the work on the Internet, has grown. Therefore, special conferences of the International Telecommunication Union and the UN General Assembly have adopted several decisions aimed at the initiation of the process of the coordination of respective universal rules in the last years.

The important phase of this activity in connection with the UN, was its completion by the groups of experts, which was mustered for the benefit of our own initiative i.e. the report on the analysis of problems in the area of international information security, risks and threat which have arisen in this area. This report was approved by consensus. Representatives of all key countries and main regions participated in its preparation.

At the last session of the UN General Assembly, we proposed a new resolution, offering to establish another expert group and to entrust it on the basis of the analytical report; it was presented to the members of the UN for consideration for the purpose of working out a code of conduct in cyber space which would be acceptable for everybody. Of course, the problems, which occurred this year, which have been described by my colleague, should be reviewed in this context as well, in addition to the special initiative proposed by Brazil and Germany in the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly. We will actively participate in its promotion, because Russia has been promoting the idea of the need to assume obligations not to interfere in the private life of nationals within the framework of the law enforcement agencies of the UN and other organisations, such as the Council of Europe and the OSCE. We have serious leads, but we need to agree on this universal code of conduct.