Speech by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his answers to questions from the mass media summarizing the results of the brunch with foreign ministers from EU member-states and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy for the European Union/Vice-President of the European Commission Catherine Ashton, Brussels, 16 December 2013

Sergey Lavrov: We have conducted a meeting in an extended format between the Russian Federation and the European Union at ministerial level. All the 28 ministers and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Catherine Ashton were present. The goal of such events is to review the entire spectrum of our relations. We have conducted it, primarily, to prepare for the EU-Russia summit, which will be held at the end of January 2014 in Brussels. We have stated that we have a package of documents, which may be signed or announced during the summit meeting. We agreed to reinforce our preparations and to fill the summit with maximum specific content.

First of all, it is about driving some issues, which have been on our agenda for a long time, from dead-lock. A visa-free dialogue is our priority. It has been ongoing for over 8 years, and has acquired unshaded outlines in the last two years. We agreed the list of joint steps, which we and our European partners must undertake to ensure safety of travel documents and strict control on borders, as well as to do everything for our nationals to visit each other peacefully and safely. Now the ball is in the court of the EU. Several reciprocal visits were made as a result of the two years of our work: the Russian mission visited the European Union, the EU mission visited Russia. A report on the implementation of joint steps was prepared as a result of our travels and was submitted to the European Commission. Our partners promised to submit their report soon. We are convinced that having compared these two documents, we will be able to recommend leaders to announce that it is time to prepare an agreement on short visa-free travels of Russian and EU nationals from the Schengen area. In parallel, we hope to adopt a new agreement, which will become a forerunner of the visa-free regime and will, in addition, liberalise the agreement of 2006 on simplification of a visa regime for citizens of Russia and the European Union, adding categories of nationals who use this facilitated mode, including journalists, representatives of NGOs, etc. This work has completed in May. Generally speaking, the agreement is ready. We appealed to our European partners to complete their bureaucratic procedures as soon as possible so that we can put the lid on the matter at the summit: ideally – to sign the agreement on further easement of the visa regime or to announce that it will be signed in the near future.

Another topic we are interested in is a new basic agreement. It has been prepared for a long time. Delegations worked quite intensively and have almost finished coordination of all the main sections, except the trade and economic one. A pause in this topic was taken, because we completed our accession to the WTO, and we had to understand, on what conditions we would accede to it. Now these conditions are clear, and we wish them to be fixed in the new basic agreement. The consultations, which we have held lately at the work-related level, confirmed that we have better understanding of each other's position. After the agreements, which were agreed upon within the framework of the Russian accession to the WTO, the European Union would like to move swiftly and widely on the way to further liberalisation of mutual trade and the mutual regime of investments. It is important for us to look around as a new WTO member and to understand what are the consequences of our participation in this organisation for our industries, agriculture and the area of services. It seemed to us that our partners agree to such logics, as well as in the issues falling under the competence of the Customs Union with participation of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus; representatives of the Eurasian Economic Union will be present at the negotiations and participate in them. If we manage to reach understanding on the content of the new basic agreement, this will be a true breakthrough in our relations.

We have many other joint issues as well. We cooperate in the foreign policy area. First of all, it is the area of crisis regulation. We wish to line up our relations on firm legal grounds. For now, cooperation between Russia and the EU on the issues of overcoming conflicts, crises in different regions of the world is built on one-time basis. We have been advising our colleagues for a long time to conclude a framework agreement, which will formalise the main principles and forms of such interaction. The process is pretty tough. The EU prefers to use their own norms as a criterion. But we want (I think it is correct the modern world) to create a framework agreement, which will fix equal participation of Russia and the EU in such kinds of peacekeeping missions.

In practice, we have been having such cooperation for a long time, since the Balkan crisis, when peacekeepers of Russia and the EU interacted in Bosnia and Croatia. In practice, we are still cooperating in the fight against piracy in the region of the Horn of Africa: Russia conducts its own operation, the EU has the Operation Atalanta. We cooperated in ensuring peacekeeping efforts in Chad and in the CAR. Currently, the EU is interested in our interaction on Libya. But again our colleagues think that we must join the operation established by the European Union to reinforce control on external borders of Libya without letting us guide the operation, including to resolve the issues of security building on borders, security of the entire mission. We are still convinced that only equal cooperation will be effective, but in parallel, without involving into the EU operation, we are ready to contribute to common efforts, including by preparing staff for Libyan law enforcement agencies and frontier guards. I think that it will be a valuable parallel cooperation. We could well place this area of our interaction on a firm international legal framework, because (I repeat) the relations between Russia and the EU are quire mature.

Our agenda traditionally includes problems of foreign political coordination. This is Syria, Iran and the Middle East peace process. We participate in international efforts to settle these crises in various formats. Our good interaction on Syria, primarily on the resolution of the task of chemical disarmament of the SAR on the basis of the Russian-American initiative approved by the UNSC on the basis of the decision adopted by the OPCW Executive Council, was noted. Now we are discussing practical steps of concentration of poisonous substances present in Syria in one point. The Russian Federation will provide necessary transportation for the resolution of this task. Then these (correctly packed) poisonous substances will be loaded on ships. Some EU countries are ready to provide them. We will be ready to provide ships of the Navy to accompany the ships with poisonous substances to ensure security of this operation. Then poisonous substances will be reloaded to the ship, which is currently equipped by the United States. The main works to eliminate poisonous chemical substances will be conducted there. This will be done with full and strict adherence to environmental principles. We do everything to avoid any risks for the environment from this operation. We have all reasons to believe that this will be the case, and we will be able to resolve this task.

As to Iran, we give leadership to the High Representative of the Union Catherine Ashton, who, together with the EU3+3 group (Russia, China, United Kingdom, France and Germany) and Iranian partners developed the well-known Geneva agreements, which are now being brought to life. The main thing (and our European colleagues fully agree with us) is to avoid the attempts to overplay our agreements, avoid the attempts to interpret them in an extended or narrow way, but to do exactly what is written in the Geneva document: Iran freezes the major part of its nuclear programme, primarily in the components, which were of most concern from the point of view of risks for the proliferation of WMD production technologies; unilateral sanctions of the EU and the United States against Tehran are also being frozen and are gradually removed. However, the main thing during the 6 months the first stage of the programme is intended for us to renew talks on all the components of the final settlement of the situation around INP. This will be more complicated than the tasks, which were resolved at the first stage. And we feel that we are focused on the resolution of this task together with our European partners. Despite the fact that, as you know, there are certain pessimistic opinions about prospects of final settlement, we do not see such pessimism in our contacts with the EU. Together with our American partners and Iranians, I hope, we will reach final closure of this old problem, which seriously poisons the general situation in the Persian Gulf region and in North Africa and the Middle East in general.

We talked about the Eastern Partnership. Our joint conclusion is that any projects available in respect of the countries, which are not members of the EU or the leading integration groups in the Post-Soviet space such as the Customs Union, the Eurasian Economic Space, the Eurasian Economic Union, which is being created, should not be used to impose one or another decision upon these countries. Any decisions on the development of economics and construction of relations with the leading partners must be made in a sovereign way, without external interference, on the basis of interests of the country. It is not legitimate to throw these countries into any artificial dilemma.

We have heard that our European countries have understood our position. Moreover, there were voices in favour of discussing these issues together, at last, to remove any suspicions and reciprocal reproaches, be they true or imaginary, and to talk about the format of our further cooperation in a collective, equal and joint way. I think that such approach is the only right one.

What we have heard today, confirms that the EU has many countries thinking that the situation with Ukraine should be discussed in a trilateral format. Ukraine is the largest economic partner of Russia and the European Union. A large portion of the turnover of this country falls on Europe, the Russian Federation and CU countries. It will only be logical that before proposing (sometimes quite insistently) some plans of further cooperation of Ukraine with the EU, we must sit and look at economic consequences, which such schemes will have on all participants of this process, taking into account (I repeat) large volumes of trade, economic and investment ties, without mentioning humanitarian ties, between all these countries. Such trilateral interaction will only be justified. Despite the words of some functionaries of the European Commission, it seemed to me today that member states of the EU understand the need of such honest talk rather than attempts to resolve issues behind somebody's back.

Our talk was sincere, valuable and confirmed that we are strategic partners with the EU, that the volume of our interaction is so great that it simply does not allow us to do some things, which will create obstacles for strong sustainable advancement in our ties due to some relatively minor issues. Picking of some artificial reasons to hamper these ties is contrary to the interests of the Russian Federation and the European Union, as well as countries, which are included neither into our integration processes nor into integration processes within the framework of the EU.

It seems to me that they have heard us. In our turn, we did not close our eyes on the concerns of Europeans. We attempted to partially respond to them, and I think that we have succeeded in this. Of course, not all the issues have been removed, not all the concerns have been eliminated. But our country and Europeans are certainly interested to continue such a dialogue (Russia, President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Government always insist on this). I hope that the meetings, which are planned for the time remaining until the EU-Russia summit will help to remove a lot of misunderstandings and irritants from our relations. This concerns the new basic agreement and our energy dialogue. We have planned a series of contacts to discuss the situation we face in connection with the approval of the Third Energy Package by the EU, which directly affects the plans of development of energy cooperation between Russia and European Union countries. Without entrenching upon EU's prerogatives, we insist on the determination of the rules of cooperation in the energy area or any other area in our territory, without making any steps, which may retrospectively aggravate business conditions and undermine the agreements, based on which long-term mutually beneficial investments ensuring energy security of Europe were made.

Question: How did the events in Ukraine affect the Russia's dialogue with the EU? Did your colleagues from the European Union explain you their position on the Ukraine and, in particular, the fact that acting and ex European politicians keep coming to Kiev to support the opposition?

Sergey Lavrov: We touched upon this issue and, of course, provided this example, because we have been hearing statements quite often in these days that everything would be OK, if Russia did not interfere into Ukrainian affairs. We showed on clear examples how we act and how our partners act, when they come to Kiev, go directly to Maidan, dispense cookies and say that the Ukrainian people must make their free choice in favour of Europe. Several questions immediately arise here. Firstly, if the choice is free, the Ukrainian people must decide itself what choice it will be. Secondly, to appeal to make a choice in favour of Europe is a false contraposition and some sort of a hint that Russia does not want to cooperate with Europe, but drags Ukraine and other countries of the Eastern Partnership somewhere aside. It is not so.

Using clear examples, we explained that all the processes launched by the Eurasian integration are aimed at the achievement of one task only: to increase competitiveness of economies of the Customs Union – Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus (I hope that the countries, which have filed applications to accede to it will join it) to the level, when we can further liberalise our trade with Europe, and this time on beneficial and more equal conditions rather than slaving and no-win conditions.

The Concept of the Foreign Policy approved by the President of Russia Vladimir Putin includes the task of the creation of a common economic and humanitarian space stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok. We want this liberalisation, we understand that autarchy brings us nowhere in the globalising world today. We must look for economic benefits through the vastest integration and liberalisation of trade, investment and other regimes. And it is thoughtless for any government thinking about its economics, to do this from obviously losing positions, by simply opening their gate wide and removing their goal-keeper". Therefore, when all the plans agreed within the framework of the CU and the future Eurasian Economic Union are implemented, I am convinced that we will start forming a common economic space between Eurasia and the European Union on mutually beneficial conditions. Any current policy may have chances to succeed, only if it takes interests of its partners into account. We try to reach this.

Question: Are your partners concerned with the deployment of Iskander missiles at the EU border, do they have any grounds for that?­

Sergey Lavrov: I do not know, because we did not discuss this topic. The Russian Ministry of Defence has already provided explanations about the allegedly sensational article in a German newspaper. This topic has not been discussed today.

Question: I represent a Kazakh news agency. It is known that the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union, in which Kazakhstan will participate, is scheduled for 2015. Today is the Independence Day of Kazakhstan. I would like to hear about the state of Russian-Kazakh relations.

Sergey Lavrov: I congratulate you, our Kazakh friends and the government of the country on this holiday. Kazakhstan and Russia celebrate it widely. The Ambassador of Kazakhstan in the Russian Federation published several articles and interviews in our mass media. This is another example of how mutual consideration of interests, the aspiration to use all the positive what has accumulated in many decades of mutual cohabitation (including in one country for a long time) and at the same time refusing from all the things, which did not allow our people to develop freely, can be fully justified. This course was approved by presidents of our countries, who meet every year a record number of times, often have phone conversations, make official visits and have informal contacts.

We understand how to build our relations, including how to resolve complicated issues inherited from the USSR. We had one country, common economic systems. Now our countries are independent, sovereign, but neither our Kazakh friends nor we wish to lose the advantages of common economics, especially in the modern highly competitive world. We need to use these advantages to maximum. We highly value that the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev was one of the main conductors of Eurasian integration (as far as I remember, next April we will celebrate 20 years from his famous speech in the Lomonosov Moscow State University). The way participants of the Customs Union, including the Republic of Belarus, approach the build-up of practical steps in a creative and mutually respecting way, instils confidence in us that this project will be implemented.

Question: This morning the Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt announced that Russian misinforms about the events in Ukraine. He proposed to compile a list of examples, when pressure is applied using economic levers.

Sergey Lavrov: The Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt did not talk about this at our meeting today. He insisted that we all use and respect interests of countries, which are not EU members or members of Eurasian integration processes yet.

Carl Bildt, my good friend, likes to make bright statements, to draw attention to the assessments he makes. I would be ready to look at the list he wishes to compile. If he has the idea to make up a list of examples, when somebody applied pressure on somebody, it would probably be valuable from the point of view of our life in the common Eurasian continent. One approach is to guide ourselves by the logics dominating in cold war times: "if you are an enemy of my friend, you are not my enemy" or "those who are not with us are against us". However, if we wish to follow potent solemn statements, which were in use at the very end of the cold war (though, I repeat, we still feel the stereotypes of that epoch in the modern life), we must admit that security is undivided, nobody should ensure their own security at the expense of others, all the countries must have equal rights, sovereignty of each state should be respected. Then we will have no problems.

Today Carl Bildt attempted to tell that Russian practical steps in the area of trade and economic ties with our neighbours might be interpreted as a means of political pressure. He is a very experienced person, occupied the position of a Prime Minister, and now he is the Swedish Foreign Minister. However, this is somewhat unprofessional conversation calling on the man of the street. Such "simplistic" slogans may be knocked into others' heads without explaining anything. Men hear one and the same phrase from their TVs, it is repeated many times and it settles in their heads.

All the trade relations today are oriented, primarily, towards interests of Russian economics rather than geopolitics or some ideological considerations. We concluded a Free Trade Agreement with CIS countries, spent about 18 years coordinating the conditions of our accession to the WTO, built defences for a certain period so that our industry, agriculture and the area of services, thanks to protective tariff and other measures, become more competitive, to be able to conduct conversation about further liberalisation of trade on new conditions, from new, fortified positions. If we refuse from all of this now, then our government and decisions regarding the accession to the WTO are worthless. The signature of the Free trade agreement with Ukraine will mean only one thing. If we would preserve our free trade zone, and at the same time would not use the right contained in the CIS Free Trade Zone Treaty, to protect our own fields of industry, economics in case of risks, then we would face the situation, which was discussed by our presidents and experts many times: Ukraine would immediately open for 85% for European goods, which would fill the Ukrainian market, but the Ukrainian market would not withstand the competition with European goods, they would flow abroad. Both Russia and Belarus would be the most evident candidates to receive these goods. Thus, our own production of similar goods would be killed.

Therefore, without blackmailing anybody, we warned honestly that the CIS Free Trade Zone Treaty, to which Ukraine was a party and lobbied it (President Viktor Yushchenko was the main lobbyist of this Agreement), contains a reservation that if any area of economics of a member state of the Free trade zone faces the situation creating risks for the respective area of national economy, this country has the right to stop providing benefits. It is not about any sanctions, but rather that in this case in our trade with Ukraine or other country, which would choose such path, we would return to the most-favoured-nation principle. Only benefits would be removed, but the most-favoured-nation principle, which is used if other liberalising trade agreements with all countries of the world are missing, will remain in force for WTO members.

Therefore we may make up lists, but the main thing is to understand that economy must be based on economic considerations rather than geopolitical exploration considerations, especially when it is free.

At the meeting with my European colleagues today I asked how many free trade agreements they had. It turned out that there were not many of them. If I am not mistaken, only one such document was signed after the Treaty of Lisbon. At the meeting with my European colleagues today I asked how many free trade agreements they had. However, from their reaction and from other sources we know that the answer is simple – by these agreements, the European Union wishes to get almost unimpeded access to the markets of the countries, to which such agreements are offered. There were such attempts in Latin America, in other parts of the world, and they have not succeeded only because countries think of protection of their economies, wish to make them more competitive before starting to talk about free trade. The European Union wants everything at once. It seems that the EU wants to make steps to open markets of partners, when it streets ahead of them in competitiveness. It is not mere chance that the agreements with countries of the Eastern Partnership were prepared in secret. Nobody showed them to anybody. When I asked why it happened so, my colleagues answered: "because we had negotiations, but as soon as the agreements were initialled, they were immediately published on the website of the European Commission". The answer to the next question was also interesting. I told that the agreements were published, and we, as a country having large volumes of cooperation with Ukraine, Moldova and other countries of the Eastern Partnership, would be interested to understand, how they may affect our relations, how much these agreements taking into account interests of the Russian Federation as the largest partner of Kiev and Kishinev. The answer is very simple – nothing can be changed after initialling. It means, that it is a secret before initialling, but after this there can be no steps to any side. In my opinion, this is a vulnerable point requiring clarification in our relations with the European Union. Of course, we should stop hiding from each other the things, which are devised in respect of countries, which are common large trade partners of Russia and the EU.

Question: In Adra, 40 km from Damascus, allegedly militants of Jabhat al-Nusra front massacred, according to different estimates, from 50 to 90 civilians. How these ruthless actions may affect Geneva-2? What is the attitude of our western partners to them, as generally, they supported and support the Syrian opposition?

Sergey Lavrov: Our European and American partners do not support Jabhat al-Nusra. The massacre in Adra is outrageous, and this is not the only fact. They killed Christians, Druzes, Alawites and even Sunnis, who did not agree to the Islamic order, which these people wanted to establish in the region. I repeat, this is not the only fact. Not long ago, the Human Rights Watch fixed facts of not less cruel behaviour of some associations, which are now included into the so-called Islamic Front. This is a new structure, which was created as a competition to the Free Syrian Army, which was always demonstrated by our western partners as a laic power, the goal of which is to keep Syria a multi-sectarian, polyethnic, democratic state, confronting terrorists, which fights the regime to get more for their people on the basis of equality and democracy.

Currently, we observe a drastic weakening of the Free Syrian Army. Many units from this structure changed sides. Many people say that they were overbought by those who create the Islamic Front.

The Islamic Front proclaimed quite radical goals, nevertheless our western partners attempt to establish contacts and position it as an "acceptable force", which has some power "on the ground". However, according to some data, which seem to be credible, we know that when this front was created, there was a discussion about the inclusion of Jabhat al-Nusra into it, and it was not done not to spoil its reputation, because Jabhat al-Nusra is included into terrorist lists in the United States and Europe.

There is also information that our American partners meet representatives of the Islamic Front and attempt to bring them under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army in some way. In several days, when my deputies will meet our American colleagues – the US Secretary of State John Kerry, special UN representative on Syrian Lakhdar Brahimi – and will discuss the preparation for the Geneva-2 conference, we will ask this question. If the Islamic Front is ideologically close to Jabhat al-Nusra, but distances from it due to presentation considerations, then we should imagine, whom we will talk to, and who will represent the Syrian opposition at the Geneva meeting.

At the same time, the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary Forces is disintegrating, its leaders make contradictory statements. We wish to contact them. We have already had meetings abroad. We invited its representative Ahmad al-Jarba, and he promised to come to us. We wish to hear first-hand, how they see their role and how they imagine the future of Syria.

In parallel, we learn that some members of the National Coalition such as the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, separate within the framework of it, create their own party, which will either remain under the umbrella of the National Coalition, but will request some special rights for itself, or will leave the Coalition.

One of leaders of the Free Syrian Army after the disappearance of its head General Salim Idriss (he is now in Turkey or Qatar) stated that he will create the "Union of Syrian Revolutionaries". Different structures multiply like mushrooms. For the Geneva-2 conference to happen, and we wish it to open within the agreed time limits – the 22 January, as it was announced by the UN Secretary-General, we should understand, who will sit in front of the Syrian Government. If these are the people, who represent the foreign wing of the opposition and have no influence on the opponents of the regime inside Syria, then there will be no use from this conference. However, we will still try to achieve its convention.

Now, our main task is to receive from our American partners and those who contact the opposition and all its wings more frequently, who have more influence on the opposition than we have, answers how it looks like? Who can talk responsibly and authoritatively on behalf of the opposition and who can agree and resolve the tasks, which were set by all of us, including in UNSC resolution 2118, which approved the Geneva Communiqué, stating that Syria must remain a laic, sovereign, territorially integral state, where rights of all ethnic, sectarian and political groups are ensured, and that representatives of the entire spectrum of the Syrian society must participate in it? Currently, it is the most important task, because we do not want the negotiations to turn into profanity and we do not want the people sitting in front of the government be not responsible for their words. Now we face a critical stage. Our western colleagues, who have taken the National Coalition under their wing, proposing it as the main mouthpiece of expectations of the opposition and calling it "the only representative of the Syrian people" (this statement is not clear in itself, because, if it would be so, the army of Bashar al-Assad would disband long ago, and the war in Syria would fining long ago), must answer, what approaches this group will bring to Geneva, and whom it will represent.

We are not merely passive observers of this. Unlike the West, working with the opposition only, we contact the government and the opposition, meet all the opposition groups. We wish to hear their vision, what they want for their country, their homeland. Syrians only may resolve this problem only, but we will help them in this for them to set up a representative or, as it is used to say, an inclusive dialogue and come to what the world community expects from them: the achievement of consent on the future of their country.