Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's remarks and answers to media questions at a joint news conference with Minister for Foreign Affairs, Migration and Tunisians Abroad of the Republic of Tunisia Nabil Ammar following talks, Moscow, September 26, 2023
26 September 2023 15:39
1885-26-09-2023
I would like to welcome once again my colleague, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Migration and Tunisians Abroad of the Republic of Tunisia. Mr Nabil Ammar is the son of a former Tunisian ambassador to the Soviet Union. He lived and went to school here. He visited his old school during this visit. We are pleased to see him in Moscow.
Our talks were held in a friendly and open atmosphere. They were very substantive and useful. Our countries are linked by long-standing bonds of friendship and cooperation. Today, we have stated our common intention to build up mutual cooperation across the board both bilaterally and with regard to regional and international issues. We have confirmed that we want to continue our political dialogue and pay special attention to cooperation in practical and material areas, including in high technology, peaceful nuclear energy, space exploration, and tourism.
Tunisia is one of the leading trade and economic partners for Russia in Africa. During the first six months in 2023, trade exceeded $1.2 billion. This is a good indicator, particularly considering the conditions under which this figure has been reached. We have agreed that Russia will continue stepping up its purchases of Tunisian products, primarily food and textiles, which enjoy stable consumer demand in Russia. We have decided that now is not the time to ease up and we will prepare proposals on new areas of cooperation for the next, eighth, meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation scheduled to take place in Moscow by the end of 2023. We have agreed to speed up the work on the two-year programme of trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation.
There are also good prospects for cooperation in space exploration. In 2021, a Russian carrier rocket launched into orbit the first Tunisian communications satellite. Currently, both countries' companies have reached an agreement and commenced joint work on creating another five Tunisian spacecraft. This is also a promising sphere of cooperation.
I mentioned tourism. We hope that fairly soon we will be able to create conditions for returning to the pre-pandemic levels of tourist traffic that averaged about 600,000 Russian tourists per year.
We separately discussed prospects for organising the purchase of Russian grain. The first batch has been delivered to Tunisia. The ministerial delegation includes the head of a Tunisian grain company, who is currently conducting negotiations with the Ministry of Agriculture regarding the terms of future deliveries and expanding the deliveries.
We were grateful to have our Tunisian friends update us about the transformations taking place in that country under President Kais Saied. We support the Tunisian leadership's efforts to strengthen their economy and statehood.
We discussed current international issues focusing, in particular, on the Middle East and North Africa, where the conflict potential runs high. Russia and Tunisia advocate overcoming existing crises through diplomatic efforts and achieving political resolutions. Such approaches are crucial if we want to resolve the deep-seated challenges that persist in Libya. As a result of Western - NATO aggression in 2011, Libya was in fact annihilated as a state. For many years now, the international community, neighbouring countries, the Arab League, and the United Nations have been trying to find a basis for all Libyan political forces to engage in a truly inclusive national political dialogue and to agree on how to run their country, starting with elections, of course. Many attempts towards this end have been made in recent years, but they have been unsuccessful, which cannot but cause our concern.
We briefed our Tunisian guests about the work that Russia, Iran and Türkiye are conducting within the Astana format to facilitate the Syrian settlement. We discussed political priorities based, among other things, on Syria's return to the Arab League. We noted serious ongoing economic issues in Syria that are caused by the illegitimate all-out Western sanctions. The United States is effectively creating a quasi-Kurdish state on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River and engaging in smuggling Syrian oil and grain out of that country.
We took a close look at the Palestinian issue. Without resolving it (this is our shared position) on an established international legal basis, it is difficult to achieve long-term improvements in the broader Middle East region. We will continue to push for resuming direct Palestinian-Israeli negotiations which are the only way to implement the existing UN resolutions.
I would like to thank my esteemed counterpart, Nabil Ammar, for a productive meeting which, I am confident, will allow us to outline concrete steps towards expanding our partnership.
Question (retranslated from French): The Finnish Foreign Minister openly acknowledged that sanctions against Russia hurt ordinary Russians and that the West had no other choice, adding that the Russians who do not live in a "normal" democracy (apparently, "normal" is defined by the minister's criteria) must understand that they need to pay a price for the special military operation. What's your take on these remarks?
Sergey Lavrov: I am no longer surprised by anything our Western colleagues have to say. By the same token, I am not surprised by the speed with which Finland has shed its neutral status and reputation and merged with the US anti-Russia project and how much they enjoy doing the "work" that was assigned to them.
Speaking of the impact of sanctions, it is a fairly candid confession. Until recently, the West kept claiming that sanctions were aimed at changing the policies of the targeted state and that humanitarian aspects were always taken into account to avoid causing serious harm to civilians.
Now, the Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen - clearly still an inexperienced diplomat - minced no words describing the purpose of the sanctions which is to hurt ordinary people. As she said, the Russian people must pay a price for waging this war meaning that she wants the Russian people rise against their government. This is an absolutely rude statement to make.
Finland is taking giant strides as it moves toward the forefront of the West's anti-Russian, Russophobic, and racist campaign. Perhaps, Ms Valtonen would benefit from discussing the price that people under sanctions in Syria, Venezuela, and Afghanistan, who were robbed of their money, have to pay. We, too, had $300 billion stolen by all these Western colleagues, including Finland. Apparently, it was also done to make the Russian people feel responsible.
Speaking about the price of a particular war, we should think not only about sanctions but also about the price the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan paid when they were bombed, and civilian facilities in their respective countries were deliberately destroyed to instil fear and spread terror. The price of that war for ordinary citizens should also be factored in as Ms Valtonen continues to learn the basics of the trade as Finnish Foreign Minister.
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