Lavrov at ASEAN

What’s on Lavrov’s mind that gives him this look? Perhaps he’s looking at Blinken.

Lavrov’s in Laos for the ASEAN Summit series and we’re favored with a PR and the presser that followed this first day of activity. First the PR, “On the 19th East Asia Summit”:

On October 11, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took part in the 19th East Asia Summit (EAS) in Vientiane, Laos.

As part of the tasks of strengthening the multipolar world order and creating a safe, conflict-free environment in the Asian landscape as a factor of sustainable development and equal cooperation, the Russian side reaffirmed its policy of preserving and strengthening the architecture of cooperation mechanisms built by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The Russian side drew the attention of the summit participants to the serious risks generated by the creation of alternative to ASEAN bloc structures in the region, including military and military-political ones. We emphasised the growing threat of militarisation of the Asia-Pacific region against the backdrop of NATO's expanding presence in its space.

In addition to the Russian initiatives to create a region-wide mechanism for a collective response to epidemic threats and deepen cooperation in the tourism industry, which were previously formalized by the leaders' decisions, we invited our partners to work out such new areas for the VASOV platform as support for remote areas and socio-cultural interconnectedness.

In his speech, Sergey Lavrov reaffirmed Russia's unwavering focus on creating a single "seamless" space for joint development and security in Eurasia by combining the potentials of multilateral mechanisms for constructive cooperation, primarily the SCO, ASEAN and the EAEU. [My Emphasis]

Nothing really new as old business continues until it gets completed. And now for the presser:

Good afternoon

The meetings within the framework of the 19th East Asia Summit, at which I represented us on the instructions of President of Russia Vladimir Putin, have come to an end.

The discussion showed that our Western colleagues, who are ASEAN partners along with us, the Chinese and Indians, are working to undermine the multilateral architecture (both in the economic and security spheres) that has been built around ASEAN for many decades and has proved its relevance.

However, it is now obvious that the United States and its allies have set a course for including the Asia-Pacific region in NATO's zone of interest. Numerous narrow, closed military-political associations controlled by the Americans are being created here. These are the "troika" of the United States, Japan, and South Korea; USA, Japan, Philippines. There are the Indo-Pacific "four": Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan. All this does not contribute to teamwork, but fragments the common space. And he divides it into friends and foes.

We drew attention to the risks of militarisation of the region as a result of such a policy of Western countries, the risks to the stability and sustainable development of the Asian part of our common continent.

In turn, we reaffirmed that Russia invariably supports the efforts of the ASEAN countries aimed at preserving peace and ensuring equal cooperation with all partners of the Association.

The West wants to make ASEAN its main partner and target this partnership primarily against the interests of Russia and China. On this foundation, which is independent of the political situation (I am referring to our relations with ASEAN), we have been building strategic cooperation with ASEAN for more than three decades. Next year, we will mark the 20th anniversary of the first Russia-ASEAN Summit and the adoption of the Joint Declaration on Developed and Comprehensive Partnership.

Russia prefers to politicise East Asia Summit events and promote a number of initiatives in such areas as anti-pandemic response, people-to-people contacts, including tourism, and support for volunteering. We propose practical areas of cooperation that are useful for all participants, and which should be built on the basis of equality and mutual benefit.

At the current meeting, it was proposed to establish cooperation in the development of remote areas. This is a topical issue for us and for many ASEAN countries.

At today's meeting, we have articulated and disseminated comprehensive reflections on cultural and social interconnectedness. These tasks are now of particular importance against the backdrop of the spread of destructive ideologies and attempts to erode traditional values.

Many of the ideas voiced in the speeches of our ASEAN colleagues to strengthen the regional architecture echo our well-known initiative to form an architecture of indivisible security and equitable development in Eurasia.

This year, for the third time, the Secretary-General of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was a guest of the Association at the East Asia Summits, who made a positive proposal to establish contacts between the SCO and ASEAN in a variety of areas relevant to the development of the member countries. It was noticeable that the SCO and ASEAN are natural partners not only because of their geographical proximity, but also because of the strong commitment of the member states of both organizations to the principles of sovereign and mutually beneficial cooperation based on taking into account each other's interests.

We welcomed the aspirations of some ASEAN countries to move closer to BRICS. Today, this association is one of the pillars of the multipolar world order. The upcoming BRICS summit in Kazan will be an international event of global importance in just a few days. A number of ASEAN countries were invited to participate in the summit. These invitations were accepted.

We have no doubt that the approaches developed within the framework of BRICS to various issues on the agenda may well be of interest to the participants of the East Asia Summits, especially the member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Question: Could you tell us who or what prevented the adoption of the final statement?

Sergey Lavrov: In short, the final declaration could not be adopted because of persistent attempts by the United States, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand to make this document purely politicised, to move away from the practice that has been used for many decades at the East Asia summits, namely, to prevent the declarations from being saturated with any geopolitical confrontational issues. In recent years, the declarations have set out areas of practical cooperation in the economy, trade, investment, the humanitarian sphere, etc. It is obvious to everyone that attempts to saturate these programs of work with others are counterproductive.

Last year, the East Asia Summit Action Plan was adopted. During this event, we have introduced a number of practical ideas aimed at implementing projects in the areas covered by this joint Plan.

The West methodically blocked all these actions, demanding in return that we "sign all mortal sins" in connection with what is happening in Ukraine, where the United States and its allies provoked a coup d'état and have since supported the actions of the criminal Kiev regime. That's the main reason. The ASEAN countries are well aware that this is not conducive to the development of cooperation in the format of the East Asia Summits.

Question: Commenting on the results of the Russia-ASEAN ministerial meeting held here in Laos in July, you said that the Association supported the idea and was grateful to Moscow for Russia's support for the central role of ASEAN in the region. And what can my country be grateful to ASEAN for in the context of its regional problems?

Sergey Lavrov: For the same central role of the Association. We are convinced that upholding our central role (and this is not easy to do in a situation where our Western colleagues are trying to split ASEAN) requires political will. It is observed in the countries of the Association.

Question: Shortly before the summit, the new Prime Minister of Japan proposed the creation of an Asian analogue of NATO. According to him, without this unification, new conflicts may arise in the region. In your opinion, what could threaten this region and how can they be prevented?

Sergey Lavrov: Any militarisation and any idea of creating military blocs always carry the risk of confrontation, which could turn into a hot phase.

With regard to Japan specifically, we are seriously concerned about the remilitarization of that country. Forgetting the lessons of World War II, the Japanese leadership is pursuing a policy of increasing defense spending and modernizing basic doctrinal documents, which include the concept of the possibility of delivering preventive strikes.

Japan's participation in American plans to create a global missile defense system with the possibility of deploying ground-based intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles on Japanese territory is expanding. In general, the country is working to strengthen its military potential in both traditional and new areas - cyberspace, space and other areas.

There is a growing number of naval exercises involving the United States and other NATO members in which Japan is involved. Work is underway to interface narrow block formats. One of them is Japan-South Korea-the United States, the other (it is also being formed now) is the United States-Japan-Philippines.

Today, Japan openly declares its readiness to participate in joint nuclear missions with the Americans and its interest in joining the AUKUS project. The risks involved are well known. We regularly talk about this at the IAEA.

Such a blatant rejection of the peaceful development of the country cannot but be disturbing. This could lead to the dismantling of the entire system of the modern world order and its replacement with the very same "rules-based order" that the Prime Minister of Japan spoke about at length at today's meeting. The United States is actively and obviously pushing the Japanese to such a course.

Recently, the U.S. ambassador to Japan said the United States aims to create an "Asia-Pacific trade and defense council of about 50 countries to contain China economically." In other words, aggression and confrontation are introduced not only into the military-political sphere, but also into the economy, hindering universal approaches to ensuring inclusive formats of mutually beneficial economic cooperation.

Question: You have already mentioned the interest of ASEAN countries in BRICS. On the sidelines of the ASEAN event, did any of the countries express their interest in joining BRICS?

Sergey Lavrov: This topic was not discussed at the plenary sessions.

As I have already said, a number of ASEAN countries have been invited to the BRICS Summit in Kazan on October 22-24. These invitations have been accepted. So you will see them all there.

Question: Even before the summit, the US press wrote that the United States would try to make the conflict in the South China Sea and the conflict in Ukraine the key reason for the dispute. It's a go?

Sergey Lavrov: Such an attempt has taken place. It did not find any response among ASEAN members. Participants from the "Western group", including Japan, New Zealand, Australia, agreed with the American theses, but this did not have any practical effect at this event.

In real life, the United States is building military-political alliances of a closed bloc nature. This is aimed at deterring both China and Russia.

The topic of the South China Sea was heard quite often in the statements of the participants. Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who represented Beijing at the event, reiterated his interest in ensuring that all issues arising from territorial disputes in the South China Sea are settled on the basis of international law, such as the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and the long-standing negotiation process between China and ASEAN. It has already led to two statements of principles on which further work should be built. It is now moving towards agreeing on a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea between Beijing and ASEAN countries.

Question: You have already mentioned that Washington prevented the adoption of the final declaration. Nevertheless, does the United States really continue to use the platform of the East Asia Summits in order to fight Russia and China?

Sergey Lavrov: That's right. These are the goals that all the efforts now being made to promote a "free and open Indo-Pacific" are aimed at. This slogan is paradoxical, given that all practical steps taken by the United States and its allies are aimed at closing themselves off from Russia and China and winning over as many ASEAN members as possible. Washington is actively courting the Philippines. Of course, there is no talk of an "open Indo-Pacific region" in the concept that the United States is currently guided by.

When today the United States and its allies unanimously reaffirmed their commitment to the central role of ASEAN in the development of cooperation in this region, they were, to put it mildly, lying. Because everything they do is aimed at containing Russia and China. Everything that has been accumulated over many decades within the framework of the ASEAN-centric format is being sacrificed to this task. It was convenient for everyone and took into account the interests of each and everyone. So the destructive nature of the actions of the United States in this part of the world is obvious.

Question: Two days ago, the Ukrainian ambassador to Turkey said that, according to his information, a peace conference on Ukraine may be held in December. Do you think Russia should react to this kind of "casting of fishing rods" given that the results of the US presidential election will be announced in November?

Sergey Lavrov: I do not follow the information that is periodically voiced by Ukrainian representatives at various levels. We are not interested.

Our position was very clearly stated by President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin in his speech at the Foreign Ministry on June 14 of this year. It is consistently implemented in practice. We will see the matter through to the end.

Question: The European press continues to comment on the topic of Ukraine. In particular, Italy's Corriere della Sera wrote that Vladimir Zelensky could agree to a ceasefire along the current front line if the United States guarantees1 security and accelerated accession to the European Union. How would you comment on the very fact of the appearance of such publications, their tone and content?

Sergey Lavrov: To be honest, I would not comment on it in any way. Every day some news pops up like "devils from a snuffbox". Vladimir Zelensky said one thing today and another tomorrow. Then he was corrected by his administration (or whatever it is called) the office of the President of Ukraine.

It is pointless to follow this. All real deeds are visible "on the ground" and in the practical steps of politicians, when something serious is proposed. "On the ground" we see how our armed forces are consistently solving the tasks set. So far, we have not found anything serious in the statements of politicians.

Question: According to official statements, the Iranian parliament is seriously considering the possibility of the country's withdrawal from the NPT in anticipation of a possible retaliatory missile strike by Israel. Do you think that if Iran withdraws from this treaty, the next step could be the creation of nuclear weapons by this country? How do you assess the chances of success of international players to convince Israel not to launch a new missile attack on Iran?

Sergey Lavrov: I think we have four subjunctive moods here. If something happens, if the reaction to this something is like this...

We prefer to be guided by facts, as I said in answering the previous question.

In almost all countries, there are politicians and parliamentarians who express positions that do not reflect the practical strategy and practical line of their governments. We have seen many examples of this.

As for the real state of affairs. The IAEA, which controls Iran's nuclear program quite closely, sees no signs that Iran has begun to transfer it to a military channel. The organization regularly submits such reports to the Governing Council. We proceed from these professional assessments.

But if plans or threats to attack the peaceful nuclear facilities of the Islamic Republic of Iran are implemented, it will be a serious provocation. [My Emphasis]

The Maritime Empire whose navy is rapidly deteriorating needs others with navies to bolster it so it can continue to generate chaos in its attempt to remain relevant. We can see through its machinations at various venues that it must keep the Ukraine conflict going so it can be used as a tool to disrupt these conferences so further solidarity is harder to attain. Lavrov says most ASEAN members are aware and against such crap. And since the Outlaw US Empire can only export terror and war, it uses gangster methods of offering protection to nations not needing any. China is the ASEAN’s largest trading partner and lots of excellent development projects are underway with it, so there’s utterly no incentive to turn a positive relationship into a negative one. Of course, there’s that undefinable Chinese ideology that the Empire says is a threat to one and all. That of course is 100% projection and only those in the pay of the Empire promote its evil. Demographically, Japan is disappearing along with its economy. The Philippines remains an underdeveloped nation whose lack of development is at the root of its internal political conflicts that Marcos Jr’s policies are only exacerbating. Its contrast with Indonesia and Malaysia is stark. Filipinos will need to mount another People Power Revolution to rid itself of its compradors and finally follow its genuine interests which are ASEAN inclusion and boosting trade and development with China/Eurasia.

Aussies and Kiwis need to ask themselves some very simple questions: Which nation/region offers the better deal: China/Eurasia or the Outlaw US Empire and its colonial dollar bloc? As islands, where do their geoeconomic benefits lie? Do they really want to become colonies of a dying empire as they were once before?

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