Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's remarks and answers to media questions at a joint news conference following talks with Minister of Foreign Affairs and Development Cooperation of the Republic of Burundi Albert Shingiro, Sochi, March 23, 2023
23 March 2023 16:32
536-23-03-2023
Ladies and gentlemen,
We had constructive talks today, which is customary between our countries and representatives. My Burundian colleague, Mr Albert Shingiro, updated me on the developments in East Africa, where the East African Community has recently held an extra-ordinary summit of the heads of state. He also told me that in developing its economy Burundi focuses on maintaining stability in that part of Africa.
We discussed our bilateral relations. We are of one mind on the importance of strengthening them consistently in all areas. We have coordinated the practical moves needed to boost our trade and economic cooperation and cultural ties. We discussed promising areas such as the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Our countries have a roadmap in this area, and we are preparing an intergovernmental agreement and a memorandum on training nuclear energy personnel.
One of our priorities is healthcare, including in the context of dealing with the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and preparing for the possibility of outbreaks of other infectious diseases. Head of the Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare (Rospotrebnadzor) Anna Popova has recently visited Burundi, where a cutting-edge biolaboratory with Russian equipment was opened at the National Centre for Public Health. Our plans include a series of events on the training and advanced training of Burundian medical personnel.
We have good prospects when it comes to education in other fields. As many as 4,500 Burundian citizens have been educated in our country. The country has a 3,000-member alumni association of Soviet and Russian universities.
Russia and Burundi interact at the level of law enforcement agencies. Burundian representatives participate in the annual special meetings of high representatives responsible for security matters. Our military and military-technical ties are on an upward trend.
We have outlined steps to take to stimulate direct contacts between countries' businesses. Some of our prior plans have been put on hold due to Covid-19 restrictions. Now is the time to get back to them. To this end, we agreed to use the opportunities provided by various events held in our country such as the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, the Innoprom industry expo and the Russian Energy Week.
We will continue to improve the legal framework of our relations, including in the field of peaceful nuclear energy, healthcare, cooperation between agencies responsible for justice and labour issues.
We reaffirmed the convergence of positions on most current issues across the international agenda. Russia and Burundi firmly support the observance of the principles of the UN Charter in their entirety, specifically, the sovereign equality of states, non-interference in their affairs and respect for the right of all peoples to independently determine the models of their political and socioeconomic development without coercion or outside pressure.
We are satisfied with the content of our bilateral dialogue on foreign policy issues. We have a well-established coordination mechanisms at multilateral platforms, primarily at the UN.
We noted our Burundian partners' decision to support Russia's initiatives at the 77th session of the UN General Assembly, including on ending the arms race in outer space, on confidence-building measures and transparency in outer space, on the unacceptability of glorifying Nazism, on international information security, the Cybercrime Convention and a number of other resolutions that our Burundian friends usually support.
We appreciate their balanced stance at the UN during consideration of the situation in Ukraine. We note the positive understanding of what is happening and the root causes of the current problem.
We welcomed Burundi's major constructive contribution to peacekeeping in Africa. We specifically discussed the situation in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in the Central African Republic, as well as in Somalia. Hundreds of Burundian peacekeepers are deployed in all these remaining hotspots. This is an important activity for the African Union and subregional organisations.
We discussed Burundi's activity not only in peacekeeping missions, but also in other areas of work of the African Union and the East African Community, which Burundi is chairing now. The country is also active in the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, where the Russian Federation is also part of the process. We reaffirmed our readiness to continue to assist in strengthening regional stability on the African continent, using both our bilateral capabilities and Russia's capacity as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
Special attention was paid to preparations for the 2nd Russia-Africa Summit in St Petersburg to be held in July. We look forward to seeing the President of Burundi at this summit, and he confirmed this intention.
Today we had a timely and rewarding discussion, which is certain to lend a fresh impetus to our joint work on our promising projects and plans.
Question: Seymour Hersh's latest data shows that Germany may be involved in an operation to cover up America's participation in the Nord Stream explosions. How credible is this assumption and to what extent can Russia count on an objective investigation by the European countries, if it turns out to be true?
Sergey Lavrov: I think the first portion of Mr Hersh's findings caused quite a shock among the Western countries. Their knee-jerk reaction was to first ignore these materials, then call them nonsense, and then come up with a ludicrous version about lone terrorists (Ukrainian citizens, or Russians of Ukrainian descent). This is ridiculous. Serious experts smashed this version to bits. No one believes in it.
With regard to the national investigations conducted by the Swedes, Danes and Germans, back in early October 2022 Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin sent an official letter to his counterparts asking them to ensure transparency of this investigation, because it concerns a terrorist attack at a facility owned by Russia. We suggested holding a joint investigation to establish the truth. Until now, none of the addressees has come around to show some elementary courtesy and answer the Russian Prime Minister. Our other multiple formal and informal requests to these capitals have remained unanswered as well.
I think these countries would be okay with what we in Russia describe as putting it to bed and leaving everyone none the wiser. We do not expect these investigations to be transparent or the general public ever becoming aware of their results. Most likely, it will end with something like a "highly likely" statement as was the case in 2007, when London classified the Litvinenko poisoning trial and groundlessly accused us of this crime, and later in 2018 in connection with the Salisbury "poisonings." That's when they came up with the "highly likely" and "Russia is behind it" formula. Multiple Russian diplomats in the United Kingdom and Europe were declared personae non grata. No evidence to corroborate Russia's implication in this case was produced, either. By the same token, everything that had to do with the poisoning of Navalny has remained in the dark. No one has seen the results of his medical examination at the German clinic. In response to our numerous inquiries, the Germans told us they were not in a position to share this information because it was a state secret.
I have no reason to believe that in the current situation with the Nord Streams, the German leaders will muster enough courage to act differently and acknowledge the truth, whatever it may be. We hope that international organisations, primarily the UN, will realise their responsibility for maintaining international peace and security and combating terrorism, especially so with regard to the terrorist attack that destroyed an infrastructure facility that is critical for the EU energy security.
As you may be aware, we submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council asking the UN Secretary-General to conduct an impartial, objective and transparent investigation with broad participation of international experts. China is supportive of this approach. The Americans' reaction was nervous. I would even say their behaviour looks like panic. They immediately started cobbling together a group of allied countries which they hope to coerce to vote against our resolution. I do not rule out the possibility of them getting enough votes to block this initiative. But that would mean that there is something to hide and that the data presented by Seymour Hersh is objective. By the way, he remains in contact with his sources and may well provide more materials in the future. To reiterate, this should in no way affect the UN Security Council which has its own duties and authority. In this case, it must fully implement them. We will push for the truth to be established.
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