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Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's statement and answers to media questions at a joint news conference following talks with Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Moscow, March 9, 2023

9 March 2023 15:42
436-09-03-2023

Ladies and gentlemen,

We have had fruitful talks with my colleague and friend, Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud.

We focused on the development prospects of the traditionally friendly bilateral relations between Russia and Saudi Arabia. We maintain a high level of political dialogue, the tone of which has been set by our leaders. Our dialogue is helping create conditions for addressing all issues of our practical cooperation in the trade, economic, investment, cultural, humanitarian and other spheres.

We highlighted the main aspects of our trade and economic ties. Despite a complicated international situation, we have maintained our trade at an acceptable level, although we would like to see better results. It was $1.7 billion in 2022, but this is not the limit. We have agreed to take additional measures to increase our trade in the future. Towards this end, we will use the upcoming meeting of the Joint Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation, which will be held in Moscow this year.

We reaffirmed our mutual resolve to continue coordinating our efforts within the framework of OPEC+. All the members of this group are faithfully honouring their commitments to ensure an acceptable balance and stability on the global energy market.

We discussed a number of current regional and international issues. We held an in-depth discussion on the situation in the Middle East and North Africa. Moscow and Riyadh believe that all regional issues must be addressed through a political dialogue involving all the interested parties.

In that context, we talked about ways to help stabilise the situation in the Gulf area by promoting a unifying agenda that will bring us closer to formulating practical agreements on security in that crucial part of the world. We will maintain contact on that issue. As you know, Russia has proposed a Collective Security Concept for the Gulf Area, and we will continue our dialogue regarding it with all the interested parties.

We highly value Saudi Arabia's efforts to reach a comprehensive settlement of the conflict in Yemen. We have noted the current truce on the ground, but it is still fragile, which is why we believe that UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg should continue to act energetically in support of Saudi Arabia's efforts. We are really counting on them to encourage an inclusive intra-Yemeni dialogue under the UN umbrella in the near future.

We talked about the situation in and around Syria. We agree on the importance of preserving the unity, territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic. We discussed the main aspects of promoting a comprehensive political settlement there and shared information about the Astana Format and the efforts of the governments of Syria and Türkiye to normalise their relations.

We exchanged views on the need for giving closer attention to Syria's humanitarian problems, which have been aggravated by the recent earthquakes in Syria and Türkiye. We are providing the necessary assistance to our Syrian friends. We have noticed that Saudi Arabia has sent several aircraft with humanitarian aid to Syria. We see that many Arab countries have provided active assistance to Damascus in that difficult situation. We hope that this humanitarian solidarity, if I may say so, will also help create conditions for settling political issues, including Syria's return to the Arab League.

To ensure a lasting solution to all the problems, we need to insist on lifting unilateral sanctions that our Western colleagues imposed on Syria.

We also call for redoubling efforts to settle the Palestinian problem. Stability in the Middle East is unthinkable without this. Progress in this area must be based on existing UN decisions and the Arab Peace Initiative, which King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia proposed in 2002.

Our foreign ministries maintain ties on other aspects of the situation in the region, including Iraq, Lebanon and other Middle Eastern issues.

We discussed the situation in and around Ukraine. We are grateful to our Saudi friends for taking a prudent and balanced stance and for their sincere interest in promoting a political settlement. As of now, it has been precluded by the decisions of President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky and by the position of Western countries, which believe that negotiations are only possible after Russia's strategic defeat on the battlefront. I updated our friends on the latest developments in the context of the special military operation and reaffirmed our position of principle on that issue.

I believe that our talks were timely and useful. We will maintain contacts at all levels, including at the ministerial level, considering that we communicate regularly. I also noted that the Minister is always welcome in Moscow and any other city of the Russian Federation.

Question: What are the prospects for the initiatives put forward by the Arab countries, primarily Saudi Arabia, regarding the Ukraine crisis, particularly with regard to POW exchanges?

Sergey Lavrov: We welcome our Saudi friends' interest in assisting the effort to bring an end to this situation as soon as possible and to settle it in the context of the Russian Federation's legitimate demands that have remained unanswered for years after the illegal unconstitutional coup in Ukraine.

You mentioned a humanitarian matter, POW exchanges. There have been several of them, including the latest one, the day before yesterday. To a considerable extent, the agreements making it possible to carry this out were reached with the assistance of Saudi Arabia and a number of other Arab countries. We are grateful for this. We think that this should be continued.

The initiatives by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its position on the Ukraine crisis are not limited to the prisoner-of-war exchanges. Saudi Arabia is sincerely interested in seeking generally acceptable solutions to other aspects that have been discussed in some way or other. We highly appreciate this and regard it as a useful contribution to efforts that Russia would welcome as a prelude to a serious conversation. So far, we do not see any desire to start it on the part of our Ukrainian neighbours.

Moreover, Vladimir Zelensky banned any talks with Russia by executive order in September 2022. Meanwhile, his Western masters constantly say that Russia first must be defeated "on the battlefield" so that they could talk to us "from a position of strength." Judge for yourselves how sane statements of this sort are in relation to the Russian Federation.

Question: Has the Ukraine situation affected the energy cooperation between Russia and Saudi Arabia? Have you mapped out today any specific steps to strengthen collaboration in this area?

Sergey Lavrov: Our cooperation with Saudi Arabia both in energy or any other area is immune to momentary vacillations and irrelevant considerations.

As we said in our opening statements, we have reiterated today our commitment to the existing agreements, particularly within the framework of OPEC+. They will remain fully in force until the end of this year, after which the OPEC+ Group will analyse the situation and take new decisions.

Question: An adviser to the Turkish President ruled out removing the barriers to the export of Russian grain imposed by the West. How do you assess the possibility of extending the "grain deal"? Will Russia continue to be a party if Western countries refuse to remove all the barriers?

Sergey Lavrov: We have repeatedly commented on the Western countries' approach to the "package" proposed by the UN Secretary-General and approved on July 22, 2022. It includes two closely interrelated components - safe navigation for the export of Ukrainian grain from Ukrainian ports across the Black Sea and the removal of all barriers to the export of Russian grain and fertilisers. The first part is being implemented. Russia is fulfilling all of its obligations along with its Turkish counterparts. The second part has not been implemented. Our Western colleagues (the United States and the EU) are making condescending declarations that no sanctions apply to food or fertilisers. This is not an honest approach. In fact, the sanctions prohibit Russian ships with grain and fertilisers from calling at the relevant ports, while foreign ships cannot call at Russian ports to take these goods; Rosselkhozbank has been cut off from the SWIFT system. Also, because of the sanctions, insurance rates soared four times over. This information is widely known and documented.

We keep reminding Secretary General Antonio Guterres that what he proposed was a "package." You asked about our attitude towards the extension of the deal. Well, it was a package deal. Only something already in progress can be extended. If a package is half-fulfilled, this kind of complicates the extension issue.

We noted that Antonio Guterres, during his third consecutive visit to Kiev where he attended an award ceremony for the Ukrainian military on International Women's Day, also made several statements about the grain and fertiliser deal. The Secretary-General said he was confident it needed to be extended, and that he would seek to remove the obstacles Russia is facing for the export of its fertilisers and grain. For some reason, he linked this topic with the need for additional agreements on prisoners of war and the "demilitarisation" of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant. No one except Ukraine itself has ever mentioned any "demilitarisation" in this context. The issue of the Zaporozhye NPP is handled by the IAEA.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi has been promoting an agreement to declare the Zaporozhye NPP a nuclear safety zone for several months now. He never mentioned "demilitarisation" either. We have been actively cooperating with the IAEA Director General. An agreement was within reach. We were ready to support it. But it was blocked by Kiev, which put forward preconditions that included POWs and the "demilitarisation" of the Zaporozhye NPP.

It is unfortunate that during his visit to Kiev, the UN Secretary General signed off on Ukraine's unilateral demands, even though the UN Charter requires him to take a neutral position as an international official and the chief administrator of the United Nations. Once again, he failed to do so.

The UN Secretariat has been zealously pursuing the dubious idea of "demilitarisation" of the Zaporozhye NPP, which is not going to get us anywhere, while remaining passive and aloof to another matter, which requires its full attention. I mean the questions that journalists ask the Secretary-General and his official representatives about the need to investigate the Western reports describing the terrorist attack that damaged Nord Stream in September 2022, which scream out for further investigation. Both the Secretary-General and his staff avoid responding to these justified questions in every possible way.

The Russian Federation submitted a resolution to the UN Security Council asking the UN Secretariat to organise an unbiased investigation. I think that the egregious facts that are publicly available now and the shameful reaction to them by the Western media will receive proper attention.

Any conscientious member of the international community must insist on an impartial and objective investigation that would make sure that the perpetrators are held accountable for the attack. Trying to explain that it was some Ukrainian oligarch, citing some Western intelligence services, brings shame on those peddling this version in the subservient Western media.