Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's statement and answers to media questions during a joint news conference following talks with Foreign Minister of the Republic of Uganda Jeje Odongo, Moscow, May 18, 2023
18 May 2023 16:02
959-18-05-2023
Ladies and gentlemen.
We had substantive talks, following up on the detailed exchange of views we had as part of my working visit to Uganda in July 2022.
We reaffirmed our mutual commitment to further stepping up our mutually beneficial cooperation in almost all possible areas and agreed to spare no effort in unleashing the potential of our trade and economic ties. This includes several promising sectors such as energy, geological exploration, minerals extraction, research, education, telecommunication, cyber security, agriculture and pharmaceuticals. Let me note that our countries signed an Agreement on the Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy. From a practical perspective, we are discussing a project to set up a nuclear technology centre in Uganda, including on nuclear medicine. As for cooperation in healthcare, Head of the Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare (Rospotrebnadzor), Anna Popova, visited Uganda in early 2023, where she and her colleagues met with President Yoweri Museveni to discuss opportunities for establishing a Rospotrebnadzor laboratory for our friends in Uganda.
We also discussed the need for Russian businesses to be more proactive in contributing to Uganda's efforts to develop its oil and gas sector and the energy industry as a whole.
We also agreed, at the proposal of Uganda's Foreign Minister Jeje Odongo, to encourage our respective business communities to establish and expand their direct contacts. On our behalf, we undertake to work within the Government on preparing the next meeting of the Russia-Uganda Intergovernmental Commission for Trade and Economic Cooperation, which is scheduled for the autumn of 2023.
We discussed our continuing commitment to military and technical cooperation with all its promise and experience.
We share close or converging views on most key international matters. Like our friends in Uganda, we are consistent in championing the emergence of a just and democratic global architecture, in which African countries would have a more prominent role as one of the centres of the emerging multipolar world order.
We highly appreciated our interaction at the UN, as well as other multilateral forums and associations. We agreed to strengthen coordination on the United Nations platform. Next year, we will have another area for applying our efforts: Uganda will chair the Non-Aligned Movement, in which Russia has observer status. We will use our capabilities to contribute to moving the tasks forward that Kampala has set for itself in this responsible position.
We discussed at length the situation on the African continent. We share the opinion that the ways to settle the hotbeds of tension in the region, be it the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, South Sudan, or Somalia, should be determined by the Africans with support from the international community. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Russia will contribute to resolving these conflicts in close cooperation with its African partners.
We have just signed an important document, the Joint Statement on No First Placement of Weapons in Outer Space. As I already said, we have a format of interaction related to promoting the space industry. Uganda has launched its satellite. We are ready to cooperate in the joint creation of more satellites and in the development of ground-based and outer space infrastructure for remote sensing and other civilian purposes.
In this regard, the goal of preventing the placement of weapons in outer space has long taken on a particular sense of urgency. In conjunction with the People's Republic of China, we stand for agreeing on a treaty to prevent an arms race in outer space. In the same vein, we are pressing ahead with our initiative to sign an agreement within the UN where all countries will assume unilateral voluntary commitments not to be the first to place weapons in outer space. In order for this initiative to acquire a universal dimension, we submit an appropriate resolution for consideration by the General Assembly every year. It is important to mobilise countries that are willing to promote this initiative, including by way of their own example. Thirty-three countries have signed joint statements on not being the first to place weapons in outer space with us, of which seven are African states. The voice of each of them is of particular importance, given the truly universal nature of the tasks that this initiative is designed to resolve at the UN level.
We agreed to step up cooperation in the context of our preparations for the 2nd Russia-Africa Summit to be held in St Petersburg. On behalf of the Russian leadership, we welcomed the decision of the President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, to take part in this important event. He attended and was actively engaged in the first summit held in Sochi in October 2019.
We talked about the situation in Ukraine that the West spent many years creating. We now have to deal with the consequences of the policy to expand NATO, to turn Ukraine into a threat to the security interests of the Russian Federation and to encourage the actions taken by the Kiev regime to eradicate Russian culture, language, and media in violation of international conventions on the need to ensure the rights of ethnic minorities.
We are convinced that the African countries, which have recently shown an interest in helping settle this situation, are well aware of its geopolitical context. We stand ready to work with our African friends and promote approaches based on the UN Charter's fundamental principles, primarily on the principle of sovereign equality of states and indivisible security, which must take root in the international arena.
We are grateful to our Ugandan friends for the balanced and responsible position they take when considering related issues at the UN.
Today's talks will be beneficial for preparing future contacts, including meetings planned as part of the upcoming Russia-Africa Summit.
Question: On Tuesday, President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa said Kiev and Moscow agreed to receive a delegation of several African countries with a peace initiative on settling the crisis in Ukraine. In turn, US officials said they would support this initiative only if it relies on President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky's vision of settling this conflict. Have the dates for the African delegation's visit been determined? What do you think about the US statement? Does this mean the US is not ready for a real peace settlement of the conflict in Ukraine? Did you discuss this initiative at today's talks with your colleague?
Sergey Lavrov: I think the US is not ready for any constructive action on a settlement in Ukraine either now or in the foreseeable future. The US has been creating this situation for many years in the context of its strategic policy on countering the objective formation of a multipolar world, preserving its hegemony and subordinating everyone to its will. It is using Ukraine as an obedient tool while pursuing this policy.
As for the initiative by President Cyril Ramaphosa, he really called President of Russia Vladimir Putin and suggested this idea. The Russian President said he was always ready to talk with all our partners that are sincerely interested in a stable situation in the world, without similar provocations and attacks on international law and human rights.
Now the experts are discussing the content of the forthcoming contact. The dates will be fixed on a mutually acceptable basis. As I understand it, President Ramaphosa talked about the middle or end of June or the beginning of July. Naturally, we would like to understand what initiatives the South African President and his African colleagues (including President of Uganda Yoweri Museveni) would like to put forward for discussion.
As I have said many times, we are open to any serious proposal from any state.
I hope we will soon be able to tell you about this in more detail.
Question: Why has Russia decided to extend its participation in the grain deal? What guarantees has it received on the implementation of the Russia-UN Memorandum on lifting the obstacles to Russian agricultural exports? How might the domestic political situation in Türkiye affect the deal's implementation? The current agreements were signed with President Erdogan but the country's leadership may change after the second round of the presidential election on May 28.
Sergey Lavrov: This has nothing to do with domestic political processes in Türkiye. The deal was irrelevant to them from the start. When UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres offered it to Türkiye (or another country), it concerned a declared goal - to ensure the food security and interests of the poorest countries. As was noted with good reason in the previous question, less than 4 percent of the grain shipped from Ukrainian ports under this deal, landed in the poorest countries that badly need food and are on the WFP list. Secretary-General Guterres is fully aware of his responsibility for the implementation of his own initiative that was a package deal. It was implied that along with facilitating Ukrainian grain exports, he would work to lift all restrictions on the export of Russian fertilisers and foods. He and his staff are working hard and we see this. From time to time, they communicate with the countries that introduced the sanctions to obstruct the normal export of Russian agricultural products. But we don't see any results so far.
In the past two months, during my visit to New York in late April of this year, Secretary-General Guterres came up with a new idea on how to achieve the implementation his initial goal. He again committed himself to work for implementing the Russia-UN Memorandum in this context.
Considering the circumstances and the requests of our partners, we supported the initiative of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (that he announced yesterday) to extend the deal for another two months but with the clear understanding that they would be decisive.
Question: Russia and Uganda agreed to establish a bilateral intergovernmental commission on military-technical cooperation (MTC). What is the progress in this area? What successes have been achieved?
Sergey Lavrov: Our military-technical cooperation has a long history. In 2003, our experience was embodied in the signing of the MTC intergovernmental agreement.
Recently, we decided to create an intergovernmental working group on the MTC as part of the protocol to this agreement. The group held its first session in January of this year. We discussed specific areas for further cooperation, including additional supplies of Russian military products and technological cooperation in this area. A centre for the technical maintenance of Soviet and Russian air equipment has been established and will soon start operating. There is every opportunity to give it a regional dimension so that it can service equipment (not only aviation materiel) for Uganda and its neighbours that have our equipment.
I think this is a useful process. Today we agreed to work hard on promoting it.
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