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Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at the anniversary lunch given by Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Norway Erna Solberg, Kirkenes, October 25, 2019
Your Majesty, esteemed Ms Prime Minister, Ms Minister, Mr Mayor, our dear veterans, friends,
Words fail me when I want to express my attitude to how our Norwegian colleagues organised today’s events devoted to the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Finnmark from the Nazis.
I am very grateful for this opportunity to address the high audience, our veterans and politicians of Russia and Norway. To be honest, I can hardly add anything to what His Majesty King Harald V said on the square and what Prime Minister Erna Solberg said now. I subscribe to every word of their statements.
Ms Prime Minister said history is not an exact science, it is written by people. This is absolutely true. I fully support her appeal to veterans to leave as many documented memories as possible about events of 75 years ago and during the war in general.
The song that a Russian singer performed with a string quartet and a flute (it is titled “Let’s have a cigarette”) has words that the war will soon come to an end and we must live until there are no Nazis left in the world. These Nazis were routed and destroyed and this was done, in particular, by our and Norwegian great veterans that are present here. However, the neo-Nazis and extremists are raising their heads. This also happens in Norway. You had Anders Breivik and we had similar excesses as well. This is why it is so important to do what our Norwegian friends do year in and year out – to preserve the historical memory and bring up young people and children in the spirit of loyalty to the ideals for which their ancestors sacrificed their lives. Today, we saw very small children with Norwegian and Russian flags on the square. They sang folk songs and listened to the heartfelt words of His Majesty and the Mayor and absorbed the need to remember their homeland and history. I believe this is the achievement we must cherish.
The earnest of our friendship is not the personality of the Foreign Minister but what was reaffirmed again today by King of Norway Harald V, what was said by Prime Minister Erna Solberg and the talks I had with my counterpart, Foreign Minister Ine Marie Eriksen Soreide.
Our positions do not coincide on many issues. We spoke openly about this at today’s news conference. This is an open secret. However, this discrepancy of positions is mostly determined not by our bilateral relations but by the current geopolitical situation in the world. Like with Norway, we have different approaches to numerous issues with many other countries as well but, first, we do not turn this into a tragedy, and second, the discussion of our differences with Norway is never extreme. We honestly and openly tell each other about our positions on different issues.
I can say sincerely that the current visit, apart from the strikingly moving official part with the participation of the Norwegian supreme leaders, promoted the further deepening of our professional diplomatic dialogue that is certainly in the interests of both Norwegians and Russians. When European countries and our Western partners are ready to talk about building a system of security – and this will happen by all means – we have no doubt that Norway will be in the lead in these efforts. I am referring to security that relies not on geopolitical calculations of this or other country but is aimed at creating collective, universally acceptable principles of cooperation and coexistence. Norwegian diplomacy has great traditions of mediation, a striving to reconcile conflicting parties. Conflicts were made less acute by Norway’s diplomatic interference in Palestine, Haiti, Sudan, Colombia and the Philippines, to name a few. I see no reasons that could prevent Norway from initiating normalisation of relations between Russia and NATO on the principles of equality and equal security for all countries located on our common continent.
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