Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's remarks at the Russia-ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference, Phnom-Penh, August 4, 2022
4 August 2022 17:42
1616-04-08-2022
Mr Co-chairman,
Colleagues,
I would like to thank Cambodia as the ASEAN Chair, and the coordinator of the Russia-ASEAN dialogue partnership, for organising today's meeting. I am happy to welcome all of you at one table.
This year, the association celebrates its 55th anniversary. For us in Russia, the figure "5" is associated with the best school mark. It is the "excellent" mark. So, history itself gives you two excellent marks. Russia supports your historical choice and is eager to promote a comprehensive strategic dialogue and the expansion of practical cooperation in all areas.
The Joint Declaration of the Head of State of the Russian Federation and the Heads of State/Government of the Member Countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on Progressive and Comprehensive Partnership was signed at the first meeting of our leaders in Kuala Lumpur in 2005. In 2018, it was raised to the strategic level. Today, we have every right to say that our relations are at the comprehensive strategic partnership level.
Today, we must focus on the specific actions and the long-term objectives that we set forth together, in part, at the Russia-ASEAN summit last year that was timed to the 30th anniversary of our relations. Our leaders determined the priorities for diversification and deepening cooperation in the near-term in the adopted Comprehensive Plan of Action on implementing the Russia-ASEAN strategic partnership in 2021-2025.
I am pleased to state that despite the current international turbulence, we are expanding the range of our dialogue, enhancing the level of our industry-specific platforms, and deepening trade, economic and humanitarian ties. I would like to mention separately the implementation of the joint initiatives in science and technology during the current Russia-ASEAN Year of Scientific and Technical Cooperation.
I hope that today we will discuss ways to continue improving our impressive cooperation potential in practical terms. Russia has always been and will remain a reliable, stable and interested partner for ASEAN.
We believe that our entire system of cooperation, including our multilateral and bilateral ties, objectively facilitates the consolidation of the regional architecture for security and sustainable development. Importantly, we are united by the firm commitment to create a more equitable and democratic multipolar world order with reliance on international law, primarily the principles of the UN Charter.
In this context, I suggest analysing in detail the key aspects of the evolution of interstate relations in both the Asia-Pacific Region and Eurasia. We should consider what can be done to preserve an ASEAN-centric system in a situation where some of our colleagues are imposing bloc-based approaches on others in the spirit of the Cold War. It is obvious that current geopolitical reality requires the building of bridges and the pooling of efforts rather than creating new dividing lines.
Russia consistently supports many integration platforms and projects and the pooling of their efforts to promote a unifying, future-oriented agenda. This is even more necessary since ASEAN, the SCO and the EAEU have accumulated useful experience in meeting each other halfway.
I am looking forward to an engaged and productive discussion.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
