EMBASSY INFORMS
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Mr. Minister,
We are glad to welcome you in the Chair of the Security Council. Welcome to New-York.
We thank the presidency of Equatorial Guinea for convening this meeting on the topic the importance of which can hardly be overestimated for the UN Security Council.
We thank the speakers for the information and assessments they have shared.
Mr. President,
Agenda 2063 that was endorsed 6 years ago, enshrines that by that time there will be peace on the continent. It is encouraging that African leaders went beyond this noble but long-term goal and committed to do their best in order to stop armed conflicts in Africa by 2020. However, there is a tangle of problems that hinder the implementation of this ambitious goal and account for lasting instability on the continent. Equatorial Guinea initiated a resolution, that was adopted, and that focuses on many of these problems.
Mr. President,
At the outset let me thank Mm. Rosemary DiCarlo and welcome Minister of Foreign Affairs of Venezuela Jorge Arreaza.
I could have agreed with my German colleague who said that the topic of today’s meeting should be “Threats to International Peace and Security” – threats to Venezuela posed be a whole range of states. Still I think the topic should be different. Today we should discuss the situation around Venezuela rather than the situation in this country.
Today we are present at another episode of a show that the US has been performing for a month by now with a zeal worthy of a better cause.
Mr. President,
We thank Mm. Reena Ghelani for the report.
We are satisfied to see a steady decrease of violence in Syria. However, despite the ongoing stabilization, there are separate tension hotbeds in the Syrian Arab Republic, including the one in Idlib Governorate and to the East of the Euphrates.
The situation in the North-West of Syria is volatile; it cannot be artificially deterred for a long time. The threat posed by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham militants who are in almost full control of these territories, cannot disappear by itself. The calls to “freeze” the situation only encourage the terrorists.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks and answers to media questions during the Russian-Vietnamese conference of the Valdai International Discussion Club, Ho Chi Minh City, February 25, 2019
On February 14 the piece “Moscow is a shiny city that has lost its soul” by Janice Turner was published in “The Times” and met an unexpectedly live response of the Russian public. Remarkably, according to the information available to the Russian MFA, the above-mentioned British citizen visited Russia with a single-entry tourist visa, which does not give the right to work, and tourism was declared as the purpose of the trip. Ms. Turner also failed to obtain a proper accreditation, which is the legal basis for professional activity of a foreign journalist working in Russia, which means she had no right to work as a correspondent during her stay.
We would like to thank Special Representative P.Onanga-Anyanga, African Union Commissioner S.Chergui, European External Action Service Managing Director for Africa K.Vervaeke, Permanent Representative of Morocco O.Hilale and Representative of Côte d'Ivoire G.Hipeau for their briefings. Let me express our sincere gratitude to Mr. Parfait Onanga-Anyanga for his work as Head of MINUSCA. Parfait, you have proven to be the man who would not lose temper even in a critical situation. Your contribution to stabilization in CAR can hardly be overestimated. We hope that your expertise and experience will be in demand in the UN system. We wish you every success in your future endeavors.
Mm. President,
Despite the attention that foreign policy enjoys in the media headlines, Russian domestic social and economic development enjoys the top priority for my compatriots. That was also the main theme of President Putin’s Address to the Federal Assembly. Serious progress has been made in this area in the recent decade according to the long-term national objectives that we have set for ourselves. Massive financial resources, accumulated by virtue of the nation’s creativity, talents and hard work, are concentrated on development goals. Just a few examples:
Extra $1 bn has been earmarked for the social benefits within the new home loans system in 2019-2021, which will be used by as many as 600,000 families. In the same period approximately $1.35 bn is to be directed for support measures for families having a third and subsequent children. By the end of 2021 additional 270,000 places will be created in nurseries, both state-owned and private, with over $2.2 bn allocated for this purpose from national and local budgets over a three-year period.
In the healthcare sector 1590 outpatient clinics and paramedic stations are to be built or renovated in 2019-2020, with the focus on IT technologies making healthcare more accessible even in the most remote regions.
Question: How would you comment on the media reports suggesting that Sergey Skripal’s mother has officially requested Russian law enforcement agencies to record her son and granddaughter as missing and initiate a missing person investigation? According to the British side, the UK agencies have not received any official notice from the Russian authorities with regard to placing the Skripals on a missing person list.
Answer: We fully understand the natural concern of Elena Skripal with what has happened to her relatives. The situation is exacerbated by a lack of access to the Russian citizens in violation of international law and the bilateral 1965 Consular Convention. In this case we are unable to officially state that Sergey and Yulia are still alive. We are disturbed by the recent media leaks concerning the worsening health of Sergey Skripal, whose track has been lost since the incident on 4 March 2018. As for Yulia, she was seen only once in May 2018 in a video address which was obviously pre-written by the British secret services. All this indicates that both our nationals are being isolated.
Following the 2014 state coup, which the United States and several other countries openly supported, Ukraine has been falling ever deeper into political chaos, corruption, lawlessness and aggressive nationalism.
Over the past five years, Ukraine has been engulfed in violence and crimes committed on political and ideological grounds. Most of these crimes were not followed by appropriate legal action. The case of the snipers who shot people on Maidan has not been objectively investigated, and the tragedy in Odessa in May 2014 has not been solved.
Contrary to their declarations of commitment to democracy and human rights and freedoms, the Ukrainian authorities are actually hunting down those whose views differ from the official position. Many independent Ukrainian media outlets and journalists, including editor-in-chief of RIA Novosti Ukraine Kirill Vyshinsky, have been victimised and persecuted.
- Full name: Treaty Between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles.
- Signed in Washington on 8 December 1987 by General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan. Entered into force on 1 June 1988.
- Required destruction of ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of between 500 and 5500 kilometers, their launchers and associated support structures and support equipment, thus promoting stability and predictability, as well as playing a major role in reformatting the geopolitical landscape in Europe and interstate relations between the key players in this region.
- Contained detailed rules on the procedure of missiles elimination and inspections.
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