Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's statement and answers to media questions following talks with Foreign Minister of the Republic of Turkey Mevlut Cavusoglu, Moscow, March 16, 2022
16 March 2022 19:39
535-16-03-2022
Ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to thank my Turkish colleague Mevlut Cavusoglu for his visit to the Russian Federation. Recently, on March 10, we had a conversation in Antalya, Turkey. Today's talks have confirmed that we must meet often and regularly coordinate our approaches to the key issues on our bilateral agenda and the international situation that is undergoing deep changes.
We praised our relations and the status of our political dialogue, especially between our presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. We discussed preparations for a regular, ninth session of our High-Level Cooperation Council that is headed by the leaders of the two countries. This session will take place in Turkey.
We are maintaining our parliamentary contacts. Yesterday, State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin spoke by telephone with Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey Mustafa Sentop.
Russian-Turkish relations are becoming increasingly important for maintaining stability in the region and on a broader plane. Both countries stand out for their ability to find mutually beneficial and optimal solutions to emerging problems that are based on consideration for a balance of interests.
We noted progress in developing trade and economic ties. Compared to 2020, trade grew by almost 60 percent last year to reach $33 billion. We are sure that this figure is far from the limit. Today, we reviewed steps that will allow us to increase these indicators.
We talked about the implementation of strategic energy projects. This area is the driver of our economic relations. We launched the Turkish Stream pipeline in January 2020. It will enhance the energy security of both Turkey and the southeastern European countries.
By the centenary of the Republic of Turkey in 2023, we plan to put Turkey's first Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant unit into operation, which is being built with Russia's assistance. We believe the construction of this large infrastructure facility will provide reliable energy supplies for Turkish customers.
We positively assessed our cooperation in countering the coronavirus and are grateful to our Turkish colleagues for promptly registering the Russian Sputnik V vaccine in Turkey in April 2021.
We talked in detail about the situation in Ukraine and around it. We emphasised once again that the actions of the Russian Federation are aimed at protecting the residents of Donbass from a direct military threat and at carrying out demilitarisation and de-Nazification. The goal is to allow all citizens of that country, people of all ethnic groups to live in peace, accord and security. We appreciated Ankara's pragmatic line that promotes a balanced approach and has not joined the unlawful unilateral sanctions introduced against Russia by the United States and its satellites.
We reviewed other international issues in a constructive spirit. We noted that the cooperation between our diplomats and the military helps maintain sustainable ceasefires in such hot spots as Syria, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh.
We both feel motivated to continue our cooperation in the Astana format on promoting the settlement in Syria. This is an effective mechanism for international support in the efforts to implement the relevant UN Security Council resolutions. We support a proposal to convene another trilateral summit with the Russian, Turkish and Iranian leaders in Tehran this year. We will continue working with all parties: the Government and representatives of the opposition with a view to ensuring the constructive efforts of the Constitutional Committee in drafting the foundations for a political system and constitutional reform. The induction commission of the Constitutional Committee will reconvene in late March of this year. We hope its activities will be sustainable.
Regarding the situation in the South Caucasus we noted that the foundations for the post-conflict cooperation in this common region were laid in late 2021 - early 2022 via a mechanism that is a new format within the 3+3 Consultative Regional Platform. It includes Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, Iran, Turkey and Georgia. Tbilisi is still thinking about joining this promising format; we will always be ready to see our Georgian colleagues at the meetings of this association. The first meeting of special representatives on normalising relations between Turkey and Armenia has been organised. Mr Cavusoglu will certainly talk about this today. We welcome the efforts to normalise bilateral ties between these two neighbours. For our part, we are willing to take part in joint efforts in all other areas that will allow us to deepen cooperation with the countries of the South Caucasus.
We agreed to continue our regular contacts, which have proven to be useful in practice.
Question (translated from Turkish): President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to host a meeting between the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky. Would you care to comment?
Sergey Lavrov: We did not discuss this today. President of Russia Vladimir Putin and other Russian representatives have repeatedly broached this topic in comments and when answering related questions.
There are no obstacles to organising the meeting, with the understanding that this will not be a meeting for its own sake, but contact between the presidents which will consolidate the agreements reached by the two delegations. They met three times in Belarus, and are now working via videoconference.
We have repeatedly noted that the Ukrainian leadership obviously puts emphasis on outward appearances and the holding of meetings, so that later they can show an image on TV and spread this news on the internet. All the years that we called on them to abide by the Minsk agreements, the Ukrainian leadership (the previous administration and Zelensky's) took the same approach – let us meet, and then everything will be decided. If agreements were reached at a meeting, they would openly sabotage them. This was the case with the Normandy summit in Paris in December 2019. We have learned an important lesson from the "manners" of the Ukrainian leaders. Now we will only agree to meetings that really provide added value on all the key issues that have led to the current conflict.
Question: Did the delegations discuss possible new contacts between Russia and Ukraine at the level of foreign ministers through the mediation of Turkey, like on March 10 in Antalya? If so, is there any sense of when such a meeting could take place? When might President Vladimir Putin visit Turkey?
Sergey Lavrov: New meetings between the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine with Turkish participation were not discussed. Following the meeting in Antalya on March 10, we all expressed the view to journalists that in any case the meeting was useful, although the Ukrainian side presented no specific initiatives, despite calling for the meeting in the first place. If there are new initiatives, we will be happy to continue discussions in this format, with the understanding that they will be aimed at extracting added value.
Regarding a meeting between the presidents of Russia and Turkey, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, we agreed to continue preparations for the ninth meeting of the High-Level Cooperation Council. It is to take place in Turkey later this year.
Question (translated from Turkish): How can Russia help Turkey evacuate its citizens from Mariupol?
Sergey Lavrov: Russia has been helping it from the very start. As Mevlut Cavusoglu said, far from everything depends on us. The humanitarian corridors were discussed in detail during the third round of Russian–Ukrainian talks in Belarus on March 7 of this year. The sides agreed on how these corridors should be operated. Russian representatives were supposed to suggest the routes and the Russian military on the ground – to guarantee their safety; the Ukrainians were supposed to suggest routes of their own (if they have such an opportunity); residents of the populated localities, for whom the routes were set up, were free to make a choice. They had the right to go where they felt comfortable, where they wanted to go.
After the agreement was reached on March 7, the Ukrainians have peremptorily blocked all the exits to the Russian territory throughout all these days. In practice, it was like this: the Russian military announced corridors, say in Mariupol, but the Ukrainians refused to let people go to Russia, saying they would not guarantee their safety. In plain Russian, this means that people were prevented from going to Russia. The Ukrainian representatives do not offer any particular security guarantees in the territory of Ukraine either.
We are translating our goodwill into practical deeds by announcing humanitarian pauses every day. It is the Ukrainian representatives (for instance, in Mariupol where the radicals and neo-Nazis are running the show) who must stop using civilians, including foreigners, as human shields and hostages.
Mevlut Cavusoglu will contact his Ukrainian counterpart (tomorrow, as I understand). He will raise this issue again on his own conviction and at our request.
Question: On Monday, we witnessed a tragedy in Donetsk. Fragments of a Ukrainian Tochka-U missile killed over 20 civilians. Most of the Western media ignored this event. Did you discuss this tragedy?
Sergey Lavrov: We discussed it in the context of our general conversation about the West's biased and indecent position on what is happening in Ukraine. The West is making a lot of noise about international humanitarian law and the situation with peaceful civilians all the time. It supports whatever fakes are spread by the Ukrainians every day in huge quantities. It trusts all assertions of Ukrainian propaganda in which photos and videos of atrocities committed by the Kiev regime are presented as the actions of the Russian military. The West is ignoring the suffering of civilians in Donetsk, Lugansk and other parts of Ukraine.
For eight years, Ukraine violated the Minsk agreements and resorted to bombing and shelling orphanages and kindergartens, schools and hospitals. However, the West did not show any sympathy for the victims or give any response. The same applies to the incident mentioned just now. The attack on central Donetsk with the Tochka-U cluster munition, instantly killing 20 people (more were wounded), did not evoke any compassion, either. The most I have seen is the site where it fell being shown with the claim this was done by the Russian military, who ostensibly attacked a residential area controlled by the Ukrainian army.
During all contacts with our Western colleagues, we say that these outrageous and inhuman double standards are unacceptable. I had a conversation with a European leader the other day. He listened attentively to what I was saying about Donetsk and that outrageous attack launched in violation of the norms of humanitarian law and said: "I have taken note of your version of the incident." This requires no comment. Let this be on the conscience of those who cover up the crimes of the Kiev regime.
The Russian military and diplomats are collecting evidence of Ukrainian war crimes. We will not leave this alone.
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