Moscow, May 29: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday called for a new global security architecture based on the principles of equality and indivisibility.In his video address to the 13th International Meeting of High Representatives for Security Issues, participated by over 100 nations, the Russian leader noted that the attendees form the world majority and seek to influence regional and international processes more actively.
“They also uphold the principle of sovereign equality and the right to their own model of development,” he said.
As far as Russia is concerned, Putin said, its approach remains principled and unchanged.
“I have said many times, and I will repeat it: we are convinced that the new security architecture should be equal and indivisible, that is, all states should receive firm guarantees of their own security, but not at the expense of the security and interests of other countries,” he said.
The Moscow security forum organised by the Russian Security Council has become an annual affair and is dubbed as anti-Munich as it attracts top security officials of the Global South and East, unlike the Munich Security Conference mostly dominated by the West.
Russia has invited national security officials of 120 countries and international organisations, including BRICS (an intergovernmental organisation that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation).
India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, who was scheduled to attend the meeting being held from May 27-29, could not do so due to indisposition with a seasonal flu. Ambassador to Russia Vinay Kumar is representing India.
According to local media reports, the American flag could be seen on the table with two embassy diplomats representing the US.
Referring to the Russia-Ukraine war, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the forum, “Negotiations are better than war. However, in order to succeed – and we are deeply convinced of this – it is necessary to eliminate the root causes of the conflict, as the Russian president has repeatedly emphasised.”
Lavrov also emphasised that for many years before the special military operation and after its beginning, “Russia has been offering and is offering the Ukrainian side to settle all the problems through dialogue and diplomacy”, the state-run TASS news agency reported.
He expressed gratitude to the countries that offered to facilitate negotiations between Russia and Ukraine without preconditions.
Lavrov underlined that Russia considers the West’s emphasis on the principle of territorial integrity while completely ignoring the provision on the right of peoples to self-determination in the context of the Ukrainian conflict to be unacceptable.
“Does the Kyiv regime, which waged a war against its own people after the February 2014 coup d’etat, represent the interests of Crimean or Donbass residents? Of course not,” he observed.
Demanding a neutral status for Ukraine, Lavrov underscored, “We are watching a build-up of NATO troops along the entire line of contact with Russia with anxiety.”
Speaking at the security forum, chief of Russia’s foreign intelligence service SVR, Sergei Naryshkin, said, “Europe persists in trying to use Ukraine as a battering ram against Russia and at the same time arming itself.”
“European citizens are being persuaded of the need for militarisation, scaring them with an imaginary threat from the East. By the way, Hitler acted in the same way on the eve of World War II,” the SVR chief was quoted as saying by TASS.