Moscow Sees US Willingness to Develop Dialogue, Despite Differences: Russia's FM

Moscow sees Washington’s willingness to develop a dialogue with Russia despite the serious contradictions and gaps in their positions on many matters, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Egypt’s TeN TV.

"It is necessary to switch the situation of negative confrontation into a dialogue. And it is developing. On December 7, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with US President Joe Biden for more than two hours in the videoconference format. Despite all the serious contradictions and gaps in the approaches, the United States is at least willing to develop such dialogue," he said.

According to the Russian top diplomat, the current strains in relations between the two countries cannot be compared with the Cold War, which was characterized by the confrontation between two socio-economic systems - capitalism and socialism, each of which controlled vast territories. "Now, the situation is different. There are much more players now. When announcing the new government, Germany’s new Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that several big powers, rather than only two, will be key players. As a matter of fact, this is a recognition of multilateralism," Lavrov said.

He noted that critics of the polycentric world claim that it can lead to a situation when many players "are elbowing each other" making the world more chaotic. "Our position is that multilateralism is an objective reality," he stressed. "The task is not to set countries against one another in such a competitive environment but to try to regulate this ‘Brownian motion.’ This is what the Russian president’s initiative to call a summit of the UN Security Council permanent members is about."

The minister stressed that multi-polarity cannot be ignored. In his words, China’s "rise" as the world’s leading economy is not far off," and the Asia Pacific region is becoming a driving force of development, superseding the Euro-Atlantic region. Latin America wants to decide about its identity and self-awareness is on the rise in Africa.

Lavrov expressed the hope that the United States’ willingness to develop dialogue will be shared by other Western permanent members of the UN Security Council.

In January 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin came out with an initiative to organize a meeting of the leaders of the United Nations Security Council permanent member nations to discuss global stability and security issues. The idea was supported by all other members of this format - the United Kingdom, China, the United States, and France.

According to the Russian foreign minister, the Russian leader’s initiative is not geared to limit the range of global policy making nations. "Under the United Nations Charter, they (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council - TASS) bear special responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. The leaders of the five nations can elaborate recommendations for the rest of the world community and I think such recommendations will be welcome," he added.