Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia’s Remarks and Answers to Media Questions on the Occasion of Assuming UNSC Presidency by Russia
Vassily Nebenzia: Good afternoon, Ladies and gentlemen, Dear friends,
We had a presidential breakfast this morning, and about twenty minutes ago we adopted the Programme of Work for October. I would like to brief you on what will happen in October during our presidency.
The Council’s agenda for October is very packed. As is mostly the case with other presidencies as well. The reason for it is a mandate cycle, as we call it, namely the reports of the Secretary-General that need to be discussed and the resolutions on the respective mandates that should be adopted.
This October the UNSC will also travel to Addis Ababa to hold annual joint consultative meeting with members of the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (AUPSC). As you know, it is an alternating event, and this time it is the African Union that hosts this meeting. The two Councils are expected to discuss the issues of mutual interest related to the regional agenda. We, Russia, are honored to be leading the UNSC to Addis together with our co-leads Somalia. We attach particular importance to the meeting with the AUPSC and overall engagement with the AU and African countries both nationally and in our Presidential capacity. As you may have heard, a new department – on Partnerships with Africa – has been established recently in the Russian Foreign Ministry. This shows our commitment to strengthening even further the ties with our African friends which are historically very close.
So clearly the visit to Addis will be the highlight of our Presidency.
Another two highlights will be our signature events.
The first one will be on 23 October – an open debate on the Middle East. It is a mandated quarterly meeting but we have plans to elevate its level. The unfolding catastrophe in Gaza will be in the focus of the Council’s attention this day. We expect Deputy Special Coordinator Ramiz Alakbarov to brief the Council.
On 24 October, we celebrate the United Nations Day – the 80th Anniversary of the day when the UN Charter entered into force. We plan to celebrate it in the Council by an open debate, which will be an opportunity to reaffirm that the United Nations is not a relic of the past, but a unique and indispensable adaptable mechanism for addressing most pressing challenges of the present and the future. The title of the meeting is “UN: Looking into the Future.” We plan to land the debate around several key issues, such as strict implementation of the principles of the UN Charter in their entirety and interconnectedness, restoring confidence in the Organization and long-term vision for its future. We expect the Secretary-General to brief the Council. We already see much interest among the Member States for this meeting and hope that it will be an engaging and timely exchange.
Another highlight. We will hold an open debate on Women, Peace and Securityon 6 October. As you may know, it is the 25th anniversary of the UNSC seminal resolution 1325. Technically speaking, it is a mandated meeting, rather than a signature event. But it will definitely be in the limelight since the topic is very relevant. You know how packed the Security Council chamber is when this issue is being discussed. You should recall, and I would remind those who forgot, that the Soviet Union pioneered the women’s agenda more than a hundred years ago promoting equal rights for women while in the West they had to struggle for another several decades. We expect the Secretary-General to brief the Council for this open debate. We also plan to invite two female civil society briefers to share their experiences on the matter at hand. We will share their names very soon. And I can assure you won’t be disappointed to hear them.
Turning to other mandated meetings.
After the UN floating holiday tomorrow (Yom Kippur) we will start our deliberations on 3 October with a briefing and consultations on Colombia with a new SRSG there, whom you all know very well, Miroslav Jenca; he will present the Secretary-General’s report.
On 7 October we have a briefing on cooperation between the UN and the African Union. SRSG Parfait Onanga-Anyanga will present the report of the Secretary-General. We also expect AU Commissioner for political affairs and peace and security Bankole Adeoye and ASG Martha Pobee to brief the Council.
On 8 October we plan to hold a private meeting on Somalia and Al-Shabaab sanctions. We expect to hear briefings from SRSG James Swan, AU Commission Special Representative El Hadji Diene as well as from my colleague from PanamaAmbassador Eloy Alfaro de Alba in his capacity as Chair of the 2713 Committee.
9 October will ne fully devoted to the Middle East. In the morning, we have consultations on Yemen with Special Envoy Hans Grundberg and OCHA Representative as briefers. In the afternoon the consultations on UNDOF (United Nations Disengagement Observer Force) will take place.
On 10 October, we will have consultations on MINURSO (UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara) with both Personal Envoy Staffan de Mistura and SRSG Alexander Ivanko briefing the Council.
The week starting from 13 October is mostly reserved for the Council’s visit to Addis Ababa to hold annual joint consultative meeting with members of the AU Peace and Security Council, as I mentioned. They will take place on 16 and 17 October in Addis. Before that, on 13 October in the morning, we are planning to hold a briefing and consultations on Great Lakes Region where Special Envoy Huang Xia will present the SG Report. After lunch on the same day, consultations on the implementation of resolution 1559 on Lebanon are scheduled.
On 14 October, a briefing and consultations on UNSMIL (UN Support Mission in Libya) are scheduled with SRSG Hanna Tetteh as a briefer. This meeting will be hopefully preceded by the adoption of the resolution on Haiti sanctions.
The third full week of the month will start for the Council on Tuesday, 21 September, with a briefing on UNMIK (UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo). Deputy SRSG Milbert Dongjoon Shin will present the Secretary-General’s report. TCC meeting on MINUSCA (UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic) is scheduled in the afternoon.
22 October in the morning we will have a briefing and consultations on political and humanitarian aspects of the situation in Syria with Najat Rochdi, Deputy Special Envoy for Syria, briefing the Council. In the afternoon, a briefing and consultations on Haiti will take place. The new SRSG there, whom you also know well, Carlos Ruiz Massieu will present a report of the Secretary General.
As you may be aware, the week starting on 27 October is the International Law week. So a traditional private meeting is scheduled on 29 October to hear a briefing by ICJ President Yuji Iwasawa.
No meetings of the Council are scheduled for 27 October as we intend to use this day for the spillovers of the two open debates (on the Middle East and the UN anniversary). On 28 October, we will have a briefing and consultations on MINUSCA (UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in CAR) where SRSG Valentine Rugwabiza will present the SG Report.
On 29 October, we tentatively plan the adoption of two resolutions – on the mandate of MINURSO (UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara) and UNVMC (UN Verification Mission in Colombia). But the actual timeline will of course depend on the penholders.
On the last day of our Presidency, 31 October, we have scheduled the adoption of the resolution on the authorization of the EUFOR ALTHEA force in Bosnia and Herzegovina followed by a debate on the same topic.
As for the informal wrap-up, the so-called “Toledo formula”, we are planning to do it on the last day of our Presidency on 31 October.
As for our working methods, they have remained unchanged for the last 80 years. You know that the Russian Presidency is all about following the procedure and enforcing the efficiency, if needed of course. And we will not hesitate to restore the order in the Chamber and demand that delegations respect the decorum.
That’s it, dear colleagues, I am ready for your questions or comments.
Q: Thank you so much, Ambassador, for the press briefing. We wish you the best of luck for the busy month ahead. On your run, there's nothing on the Council schedule yet, but do you plan any informal consultations, or do you see the chance of more diplomatic discussion on the JCPOA to avoid the return of the sanctions?
A: Our Western colleagues who initiated the so-called “snapback,” the legitimacy of which we do not recognize, they keep saying that they are open for diplomatic solutions, although they forfeited a diplomatic solution already by initiating an illegal procedure, while being serial violators of Resolution 2231 by reintroducing sections on the transition day of 2023 when some of them expired. You know that Russia and China offered to extend the time of resolution 2231 to give diplomacy a chance, which they basically killed. We do not recognize this “snapback” as coming into force. We wrote a letter on the eve of Friday and on Saturday, signed by Minister Lavrov. The first letter was a joint letter by the foreign ministers of Iran, China, and Russia. The last one I'm referring to, which is of Saturday, was a letter signed by Minister Lavrov, addressed to the Secretary General, advising and warning him not to rush with the implementation of the illegal “snapback,” not to reestablish the sanctions committee, nor introduce sanctions that allegedly have been reintroduced. So we'll be leaving in two parallel realities because for some, “snapback” happened. For us, it didn't. That creates a problem. How we will get out of it? Let's see. Today, we did not discuss it extensively during the presidential breakfast, but the matter was invoked, I would put it that way. We are not, frankly, happy that the Secretary General rushed to implement the resolution, which has obvious legal flaws, which we’ve been stressing all the time.
Q: A question from China. We noticed that in the program of work, there are no meetings concerning the Ukrainian issue. As the President of Security Council, how are you planning to push, solve this issue within this month?
A: First of all, congratulations on the 76th anniversary of founding the People's Republic of China, which happens exactly today. Today, at the presidential breakfast, there were a number of delegations that raised the issue saying that they might be asking for a meeting on Ukraine. We are fair presidency. If the request comes in the due form, we will accommodate it, of course.
Q: You've mentioned two signature events on 23rd and 24th of October. Should we expect Foreign Minister Lavrov to attend those meetings?
A: That's what we are anticipating. It has not yet been confirmed, but we are looking forward to his participation, and hopefully that will be the case.
Q: A follow-up on Iran first. Does that mean that Russia will not impose any sanctions or recognize the imposition of sanctions and just keep its current pre-snapback dealings with Iran. And do you foresee any future, possibly soon, discussions among the five remaining JCPOA members on this issue, and also, of course, with Iran?
A: As I said, for us, snapback did not happen. For us, resolution 2231 expires October 18, 2025, as it was envisaged to expire. And that is the answer to your first question. Secondly, you know that, in fact, Iran was in intensive consultations with the “EuroTroika” (E3) before they came up with their draft that passed on Friday. They were very close to a deal. But then they were told by a certain former participant of the JCPOA from whom the whole thing started. The first initial original sin was committed by that country in 2018, if you remember it, they told no. The Europeans said – Yes, Sir. And everything collapsed. Now, they keep saying that we're ready to continue dialogue and look for a political solution. But frankly, they demonstrated that they are just cronies and proxies of the country who decides everything. They do not decide anything. We are looking forward to direct negotiations with the United States – direct, indirect, whatever, but those that will bring a result anyway. As far as we know, such dialogue is not in effect at this time. What will happen we don't know, but we were saying that this development is really fraught with the major escalation around Iran because it opens the door for those countries who want to finish Iran's nuclear program, which they didn't finish on June 12th. That is, again, yet another destabilizing factor in the Middle East, which is already in a very bad shape.
Q: A quick follow-up. You're clearly referring to the US withdrawal from the JCPOA, which happened in 2018. When you say that snapback is basically illegal, can you explain to us again Russia's reasoning? Is it because of the US withdrawal?
A: Not because of the US withdrawal. The US withdrawal happened in 2018. For the whole year, Iran continued to implement resolution 2231, and the provisions of the JCPOA fully, saying that they wait for the US to come back to the original participants of the JCPOA. Then, Iran started to make its own moves, stressing all the time that it's all reversible, provided the violator will fulfill its commitments. Now, the US could not invoke snapback because they are not members of the agreement anymore. Who did is the E3. They claimed that in the resolution, there is a provision on the so-called dispute resolution mechanism, which they claimed they invoked, but they never did, in fact. They never did. They said that they performed every act of diplomacy to convince Iran to abide, offering it the best solutions they could offer. We know what these offers were. They were not worth anything that was acceptable to Iran, and we understood it fully. They did not invoke the dispute resolution mechanism. After certain provisions of the resolution expired October 18, 2023, lifting sanctions on Iran on certain provisions, the European countries reintroduced them in their national jurisdictions, as well as, if I'm not mistaken, by the EU itself, thus violating the resolution de facto.
Now they claim that they did everything they could, and that's why they're invoking snapback. For us, dispute resolution mechanism was never involved. The fact that they reintroduced the same sanctions that were previously lifted deprives them of the right to invoke any snapback. You know that in jurisprudence, we have clean hands doctrine and pacta sunt servanda. The violator of the provisions of a certain legal agreement deprives itself of a right to use mechanisms that are provided for in the document that they're referring to, since they are violating it fully themselves. You asked also whether the idea of the original participants of the JCPOA is somewhere on the horizon. I wouldn't say so. The E3 is not very much eager to talk in this format, not only with us, but with China as well. That is explicable to us besides our political problems in other areas, because they know who is calling the shots, and the US is calling the shots, and they listen to them and catch every hint or what that may come from the US administration.
Q: My question is about the selection of the next Secretary General. As you very well know, the process begins with a letter from the President of the Security Council, co-signed by the President of the General Assembly. This obviously puts it in your lap, should you decide to pursue this this month. Is that something that we can expect? And if so, do you have a certain time frame or date picked out that you are thinking about at this point?
A: You can expect it, yes. Indeed, we are planning to start the process during our presidency. As you rightly said, it is a joint letter by the President of the Security Council and the President of the General Assembly. It does not mean that the letter will come during our presidency. Last time when the Secretary General was elected, that joint letter came, I think, in the middle of December. Yesterday, I visited the PGA to brief her on our presidential program for the Security Council, and I raised that question with her. She is in full agreement. We decided that we would prepare a zero draft and then discuss it both within the Security Council and with the President of the General Assembly. We will come up with a joint draft, initiating the process of selection of the Secretary General. So, I hope that by the end of the year, or maybe earlier, we can expect that such a letter will find its way out.
Q: A couple more questions on the nuclear issue, but in relation to some different countries.
A: I am not a nuclear scientist.
Q: President Putin offered the US an extension on New START. Have you received a response on that? If not, are you concerned that you haven’t received a response?
A: To my knowledge, there has been nothing official from the US administration yet. I understand they were busy with the High-level Week and other things. I remember the comment by, I think, the White House press secretary saying that they will study it and will come back with a reply. Indeed, President Putin came with an initiative to voluntary follow the provisions of the treaty for one year provided the US does the same. But we are still expecting a reaction from the side to which the offer was extended.
Q: The vice foreign minister [of North Korea] was here and spoke to the GA on Monday, and he said that denuclearization cannot be discussed. They will never give up their nuclear program. Does Russia still believe that North Korea should give up its nuclear program and that there should be denuclearization?
A: You should not be asking Russia whether it believes that or not, but what the official DPRK Deputy Foreign Minister said is the reality in which we live, and that is already in their Constitution. You may like it or not like it, but this is the reality. A reality justified by the threats that the DPRK experiences, because it is not just even a security element. They really feel threatened by what is happening around the Korean Peninsula, by the military and provocative activities by the “Troika”, namely the US, Japan, and the Republic of Korea. Again, this is the reality we are facing.
Q: Does Russia recognize a nuclear-armed North Korea?
A: We do not have to recognize it because it is an open secret. They are not hiding that, like some other countries, I will not name them, but you know the names. They are de facto nuclear powers.
Q: I wanted to ask you about the plan that was presented by President Trump this week for Gaza. What is Russia’s position on it? Do you anticipate this would be a part of a discussion later on this month in the Council?
A: I am pretty sure that will be an issue for discussion in the Security Council. Even before that, before we meet on the Middle East the second part of October. You know, Russia, from not even day one, day two, was calling for a ceasefire, and we welcome any efforts that would lead to a ceasefire and ending the bloodshed that continues to happen. We know that some of the Arab countries and the Muslim countries already gave a positive response to the plan. There are still issues that need to be clarified. First and foremost, what the Palestinians and other Arabs around in the region are thinking about that plan. One thing that transpired immediately is that not many Arabs are very happy with the role Tony Blair will play in the whole exercise because they consider him a warmonger and the guy who ignited the whole region with the Iraqi war. He was the staunchest supporter of the US invasion. Let’s see. We need a reaction, first and foremost. But if the bloodshed finishes and the ceasefire finally comes into force, we would only be happy because too many lives have been really wasted, lost, and killed.
Q: A question on the Global Flotilla. There is actually news now that they are on high alert. We have heard calls to protect them. There seems that there is news now that they are being intercepted or close to being intercepted. If you have any position on that.
A: Look, I heard that a number of leaders called on the Flotilla not to rush with their plans, so to say, and not to provoke. Especially during this time when this plan came out. We do not yet know whether it is implementable or not. I’m sure that they have good intentions, but perhaps the timing is not exactly the right one for them to come there.
Q: The US may authorize Ukraine to use Tomahawk cruise missiles under the direction of President Trump, under his oversight. Would Russia interpret this as a red line? Where would this leave relations with the United States?
A: I think that has been already commented on. In particular by Minister Lavrov, who said that, first of all, it is not a done deal. It is not a fact that they will really transfer Tomahawks to the Ukrainians. Secondly, he said that whether transferred or not transferred, it will not change the situation on the battlefield. I am sure that we will find, if needed, we will find a response to that move, if that happens.
Q: A question about the meeting on the ICJ. What is it about? Can you tell us something about it?
A: That is a regular meeting during the so-called Law Week in the UN, which happens this year, starting from the 27thof October, many legal people are coming from the member states and the international bodies that deal with legal issues. That is a regular briefing by the President of the ICJ, this time Yuji Iwasawa from Japan, who will interact with the members of the Security Council on the work of the ICJ. Last year, it happened with the current Lebanese Prime Minister, who was the President at that time.
Q: I have a follow-up question about the signature event on October 24. Are you ready for any outcome document like an initial press statement?
A: Thank you for the question. Perhaps I forgot to mention that we will come forward with a draft PRST. We already announced it today to the ambassadors. The one on the role of the UN in the current world and in the future, the role which is indispensable. You would have had to invent it if it did not exist. That is clear. The founding fathers were wise enough to seize the moment at the right time after the Second World War. Yes, we are planning this. We hope that we will succeed in coming up with the PRST.
Q: October 18 marks the end of the Resolution 2231, and the remaining restrictions on Iran. What is your view on this development? In your opinion, will all the sanctions against Iran have ended by that time?
A: I think, I have already answered that question. For us, Resolution 2231 expires on 18th of October, 2025. We do not see the reasons why we should disagree with that. I mean, for us, it is clear. I think I quite extensively answered that already.
Q: The US is threatening with hitting Russia with sanctions. There is a chance that could be brought to the Security Council if they pursue that path. What would be your position if you are forced to bring up something that is actually attacking your country?
A: You mean the US is actually attacking my country? [Is that what you meant]?
Q: With sanctions.
A: These are not Security Council sanctions. They were not formally discussed in the Council. Yes, we hear talks about sanctions that President Trump alludes to from time to time. But you have to understand that President Trump, besides an international audience, he has a domestic audience to which he has to heed. He said quite recently that they would be ready to consider introducing new sanctions on Russia if the Europeans share the burden. He said many other things about the sanctions. Whether that will be the case – we will see. But President Trump is a special kind of politician. I mean, he likes quick fixes. This is a situation where quick fixes do not work. So, I don’t know what will happen to the sanctions, but we have seen so many of them, that I will not be surprised to see new ones. We are already adapted to the old ones. We have been living with them for two and a half years. If something like that happens, I think we'll find a way how to deal with them.
Q: Because I understand that they could not be UN sanctions since Russia would veto them at the Security Council.
A: These cannot be UN sanctions.
Q: Exactly. They could not be. But there could be a debate about them.
A: Why and what for to sanction us, frankly?
Q: But there could be a debate about them.
A: A debate can be about anything at the Security Council. We cannot prevent a debate because the Council is established for debates, but it also is established for maintaining international peace and security, which, unfortunately, it does not live up to in recent years very often.
Q: A few days ago, your Foreign Minister said that Russia is actually able to work better with President Trump, much better than before. Is it the same thing for you with Ambassador Waltz who just came? Do you think he is easier? I mean, have you already had any approach to him? What do you think about him?
A: I had a courtesy call from Ambassador Waltz yesterday. We had a very good conversation. We pledged to work together. When Lavrov met Rubio and Waltz in Riyadh, Marco Rubio said to him, “Look, we are two nuclear powers with the ability to destroy each other ten times or more.” Of course, we see many things differently, and we have to recognize it. But it’s stupid not to talk even about the differences. There are areas where we can work together, and we will be gladly doing that if our positions coincide. I can apply the same to our cooperation with the US here at the United Nations.
You may not notice it. You may see differences more often than agreements, which do not become public, that we have with the US. But, of course, you’re looking with your sharp correspondent eyes, you’re looking for the differences and for the hot subjects. But we had a very good meeting, and I hope that this will be the case during his stay here. It would be a little bit too premature for me to give you an opinion about Mike Waltz now, but I liked the way we talked. I like him. I think that was, maybe it’s a bit self-flattering, but I think that was reciprocal.
Q: You just said that Russia sees the UN as indispensable. But this last week, we heard a lot of very important leaders who didn’t think so. First, President Trump in the UNGA said that he hadn’t basically had any help from the UN. And I think he was referring to the Middle East, but maybe also to the situation with Ukraine and Russia. At the same time, the Foreign Minister of Italy, here in this building, told us, journalists, that the UN didn’t help to prevent the war between Russia and Ukraine. What do you think about what President Trump and FM Tajani said about the UN? What does the UN really have to do, and especially this leadership, the leadership of this Secretary-General. What should they do to help President Trump and everyone who wants peace between Russia and Ukraine? What should they do that they haven’t done yet?
A: I think that when referring to the UN that didn’t help, President Trump also referred to the broken escalator and the broken teleprompter. We say that the UN doesn’t help, the UN doesn’t fulfill, the UN doesn’t implement. The UN is a reflection of the geopolitical situation that is in the world. Should we blame the UN for it? And what do you mean under the UN, its Secretariat? For me, the UN is a sum of its Member States, first and foremost. Of course, the Secretariat plays sometimes an important and often too independent role in the United Nations. But the UN is its Member States, and if they cannot agree on anything, it is unfair to blame the UN for it. Margaret Thatcher said once that if you want to blame the UN, go and look in the mirror, because it’s about you. You have to blame yourself, first of all, and those who you cannot make deals with.
Coming back to the previous question, which is related, I think President Trump is the first of the world leaders who said the thing that we’ve been saying time and again about the root causes of the conflict. He referred to the NATO expansion, which he said should have never happened. He said, “it is not my war, it is Biden’s war.” Europeans are trying to make him participate in Biden’s war now, and we see it clearly and vividly. President Trump wanted a quick fix in Ukraine, the ceasefire. We’ve seen ceasefires before. We’ve seen ceasefires under the Minsk agreements. We saw how they were violated from the first day they were concluded, and this finally led to what is happening today. But again, Trump was the first world leader who said that the NATO expansion was one of the reasons why the whole thing started. Yes, perhaps, he did not understand very well the root causes besides the NATO expansion, because there are issues that were not clear to him. For example, Minister Lavrov, who was present in Anchorage during the conversation, told me that when President Putin said to President Trump that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the canonical one, not the one that they tried to install instead of it, but the canonical one, was banned in Ukraine, President Trump couldn’t believe it. He asked five times whether it was true. And that is true. The truth is also that the Russian language is a spoken language for roughly a half of Ukraine. Guess what language, say, Zelensky speaks with his closed ones at home and in the office when nobody hears him. Do you think Ukrainian? You are wrong. There are things that skip the minds of those who look at that conflict very superficially. And I think that Putin, who has a gift for convincing people and getting his point across, said to President Trump a few things that he might have not realized.
Coming back to the UN, to blame the UN is to blame ourselves for the miserable state of geopolitical affairs that we witness today. Of course, nobody likes to lose their dominance that lasted 500 plus years. I mean the West. None of them like the new rising poles of the world. The world is really becoming multipolar, and nobody denies that, even those who don’t like it. The role of the Global South is growing; it requires and demands to play [a larger role] in the international arena. We are witnessing tectonic changes in the world. The question is that these tectonic changes should be political and hopefully not military, so to say, because there is too much conversations about World War III. You see what is happening in Europe today. They are seriously preparing for a war with Russia. This drone wall, the rearmament, people who pretend to be serious, who seriously say that Russia is preparing to attack Europe.
I mean this warmongering. It’s like in the old Russian play: when a rifle is hanging on the wall, one day it will fire, even without the trigger being pressed. These talks are not leading us anywhere where we can resolve these things. As for Europe – I’m sorry to say it, I love Europe, I have traveled a lot around Europe. Europe is, of course, culturally very close to Russia, but look at the state of European politics today – they are miserable, simply miserable. Where are these people? Where are the giants of politics? You may have agreed with them, you may have disagreed with them, but people of the caliber of Churchill, De Gaulle, Giscard d’Estaing, Kohl – they don’t exist anymore. These are all dwarves. Besides everything, they stupidly refuse to engage with Russia, thinking they can solve it themselves. But they are not solving it themselves. They’re still looking across the ocean. Whatever comes out, they will follow. And indeed, after Anchorage, after there were some signs on the horizon that the conflict might take a positive turn, they rushed to the White House to convince Trump that it shouldn’t be done and that he should continue, to make Trump engage in what he calls Biden’s war.
Q: Ambassador, let’s remember Berlusconi, the friend of President Putin, once wanted Russia within NATO. And this is my personal opinion: I think Russia is Europe. When I was going to school, all through elementary and so on, I learned in Italy that Russia – at least the European part of Russia, if you don’t go too far into Asia – is part of Europe. For me, it’s not good when you say, “I went to Europe, I went around”. I think you should say: “We are part of Europe, too”.
A: There was once a Russia–EU summit in Vladivostok. Dmitry knows this better because he was dealing with that. I do not recall who was then the head of the European Union at that summit in Vladivostok – which is in the Far East. He said, “I cannot believe it: I’m in the Far East, in Vladivostok, but I feel as if I were in Europe”. That is partly an answer to your question. As for Berlusconi, I think Berlusconi is an intelligent man, despite being very charismatic and a character. I don’t think he would try to convince President Putin of the things that President Putin is convinced of himself. I think it is much more probable that President Putin would have convinced Berlusconi about his position than the other way round.
Q: Further on the cooperation with the new US Ambassador Mike Waltz. We are just very curious. I know it’s a bit forward-looking, but what are the areas you expect to see that you can cooperate on? We know that Foreign Minister Lavrov said some of the areas are, for example, energy and space. But what are the areas you foresee in the Security Council?
A: I am not directly responsible for energy or space exploration. But here in the UN, across the board, first of all, we cooperate. Cooperation doesn’t mean agreement all the time.
But one thing which comes to mind immediately is Syria. We are both penholders on the Syrian file with the US for a long time. Secondly, we have many things in common when it comes to the understanding of the energy transition.
I like the US position – a common-sense position – on gender issues, on climate. Perhaps it was a little too radical how President Trump presented it, but in essence you cannot make an idol of that thing. Even the term “climate change” surfaced quite recently in the discussions.
There are many things that Americans are taking very common-sense wise way. That is something that we can always cooperate with them on. In the Security Council one thing where we differ with them (and not just us, but I think the rest of the Council as well) is the situation in Gaza, of course. And the Middle East, how they see it. Let’s see what will come of President Trump’s recent plan on Gaza. Hopefully, it will work. Before that, you know that they vetoed the resolutions on Gaza – which were humanitarian, which called for what they always insisted on, on the release of the hostages, etc. They still vetoed them. Hopefully, President Trump’s plan will make a difference.
There are other issues – in fact, all the issues in the Security Council we discuss with the Americans. They cannot avoid it, and we cannot avoid it. So, cooperation is across the board. The problem is that we do not come to an agreement on all questions.
Thank you.
