Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's opening remarks at a meeting with Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China Wang Yi, Tashkent, July 28, 2022

28 July 2022 15:35
1560-28-07-2022

Mr Minister, friend, colleagues,

I'm delighted to see you in Tashkent. The fact that we meet quite often speaks of the high level of coordination between Moscow and Beijing. On July 7, we held talks on the island of Bali, Indonesia. This fact reinforces what our Chinese friends say on this account, "You get to know someone only over the course of time." In our case, it's about time-proven friendship.

We see the world becoming more diverse and balanced with a growing number of truly inclusive interaction formats coming to the fore. This evolution is backed by multiple countries, including Russia, China and most countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, which seek to pursue independent policies. We act as a team with our Chinese partners to support these processes and to advocate peace and order based on international law, genuine multilateralism and the centrality of the UN and the UN Security Council.

We are satisfied with our cooperation within the SCO and the steady expansion of the geographical scope and meaningful content of the SCO's activities. I'm confident that tomorrow's meeting of the SCO Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs will lay a solid foundation for our continued efforts to promote cooperation and preparations for the upcoming meeting of the SCO Heads of State Council.