Good afternoon,
I would like to take this opportunity to once again convey, through our media, my gratitude to our Belarusian friends – President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko and my counterpart Foreign Minister of the Republic of Belarus Maxim Ryzhenkov – for inviting me to the Minsk Conference on Eurasian Security that is now an annual event. I took part in all three previous conferences, and I’m genuinely pleased to take part in this forum for the third consecutive year.
The conference is steadily moving towards becoming a promising discussion and expert platform to develop concrete recommendations. From my standpoint, the fact that delegates from public authorities, as well as experts, political scientists, and civil society figures have come together for this event is important and makes it possible to leverage ideas coming from civil society that genuinely resonate with the people.
An increasing number of people across the Eurasian continent recognise the importance of removing obstacles that are being artificially put up on the way towards sustainable, independent, and effective economic growth, improvements in the social sphere, and logistical infrastructure of this vast and resource-rich continent.
President Lukashenko’s speech was followed by speeches delivered by foreign ministers of Hungary, Myanmar, and the DPRK, as well as the Special Representative of China for Eurasian Affairs. Still to come are speeches by ranking representatives from India, Iran, the UAE, Cambodia, and secretaries general of the SCO, the CSTO, and the CICA. Over time, these integration groups will, through the natural process of restoring connections and developing joint projects, eventually become part of Eurasian architecture relying on an economic foundation and a logistical dimension, which is a solid basis for building security architecture.
Forty-eight delegations are represented here. The participants will use various panels to discuss every angle of the pressing goals of Eurasian development.
We are doing our best to promote President Putin’s initiative to create Eurasian security architecture within the context of our efforts to create the Greater Eurasian Partnership. We are using this tentative term to make sure the continent has platforms it can use to freely discuss, examine and bounce ideas off one another.
You may have heard our statement. Many in the West recognise the importance of Eurasia, but the problem is that Western countries, primarily, NATO members are not ready to engage on an equal footing or to seek forms of pan-continental cooperation based on equality and indivisible security across our common geopolitical space. On the contrary, they want NATO bodies to spread across the entire continent, including the Pacific, where NATO seeks to create military-political alliance-like closed blocs with a limited number of participants, thus eroding the universal and open architecture that it took the ASEAN countries decades to build. All interested countries were welcome to be part of that architecture and use its various mechanisms.
Efforts are being deployed to reverse this process and to subordinate ongoing developments in Eurasia to the interests of the North Atlantic Alliance. These interests are, above all, about containing China, Russia, and the DPRK and, in the long run, any other country that may wish to assert its right to pursue an independent policy based on national interests.
In closing, I would like to point out that our Belarusian friends have put forward an initiative to draft a Eurasian Charter of Diversity and Multipolarity in the 21st Century. We strongly support this idea. Several countries said they were willing to participate in drafting this document. This process will take time, but the goal has been set, and a growing number of countries share it. We will keep moving towards this goal.
Question: How is this conference different from the two previous ones? Has the tone changed in light of resuming dialogue with the United States?
Sergey Lavrov: What sets this conference apart is the fact that its participants discuss the initiative put forward by Belarus, with our support, to draft a Eurasian Charter of Diversity and Multipolarity in the 21st Century. We are now discussing specific proposals.
President of Belarus Lukashenko mentioned in his speech that many good ideas are put forward, and their value can hardly be questioned, but we need to focus on practical results. The Eurasian Charter of Diversity and Multipolarity in the 21st Century is the first step towards that end.
I haven’t sensed the impact of our relations with the United States on the discussions. We are discussing Eurasian affairs and, as I understand, the participants are seeing the value in focusing specifically on them. Who would object to countries from other continents showing interest in establishing relations with their Eurasian partners? Most importantly, these relations should rely on respect for the interconnections tying this geopolitical space together, rather than seek to replace them. The continent is vast, and there’s enough room for everyone. Foreign countries – I mean countries from other continents, including the United States – are welcome to engage in honest and fair cooperation in developing the continent’s resources for everyone’s benefit.
Question: Could potential deals on Ukraine become part of new Eurasian security architecture?
Sergey Lavrov: Security, by definition, implies pacification and settlement of all conflicts in Eurasia. What really hampers a normal dialogue is not so much what is going on in Ukraine, but what the West, primarily the Europeans and the NATO and EU “elites,” are doing after their policy aimed at inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia has failed.
Our vision of the future Eurasian security bodies does not leave out any single country or any continent. Representatives from Hungary and Slovakia have been taking part in this conference for several years now; Serbia participated in 2024, and Serbian political scientists are present here as well. We are all for keeping the doors open to all countries on our continent. The only condition is that cooperation must be equal and honest, without any hidden agendas designed to secure unilateral advantages.
For example, NATO and the EU are building their own dialogues and interaction frameworks with Central Asia and South Caucasus. I don’t think anyone can see hidden agendas in that except when, as we are now witnessing, the West is seeking to use these ties to pull these countries away from the Russian Federation rather than to establish mutually beneficial cooperation. We will use all available diplomatic, political, and economic means to counter such dynamics.
We don’t want to see anyone use the goodwill of our allies and like-minded partners in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, or other parts of Eurasia for that matter, for unseemly purposes or push them towards confrontation with Russia, which cuts against our allies and partners’ economic and political interests.
Question: In recent months, contacts between Belarus and the United States have intensified. After the latest round of talks, it was announced that sanctions on Belavia Airline had been lifted. However, the Americans said their planes could not enter Russia’s airspace. What do you think about that step? Is Moscow happy for its closest European ally?
Sergey Lavrov: We are happy every time illegal measures get revised, or even more so lifted to get them out of the way of the natural and mutually beneficial cooperation. However, you should take a harder look at it.
Lifting the sanctions on Belavia is a fairly tricky move. In fact, it is a very limited exemption from the remaining sanctions regime. Issues related to flight range and spare parts remain at the discretion of the US side. So, it is more of a show than anything else. Nevertheless, we welcome this move, because it is a move in the right direction. Still, Belavia and its aircraft fleet will remain dependent on the United States not only in terms of spare parts, but also in terms of the attempts to be in charge of the company’s policy and, by extension, to have leverage over the policy of the Republic of Belarus.
I hope our US colleagues will realise that returning to honest and fair business practices is the way forward.
We, too, are interested in cooperation with the United States in the aviation sector. During our initial contacts in January and February, we proposed resuming direct flights. As far as we can sense from our conversations, this matter does not seem to be on the list of their priorities.
To be continued…
