1345-11-09-2008
Foreign Minister Lavrov: I am glad to welcome my colleague Mr. Yu Myung-hwan to Moscow and I am glad to have this opportunity to discuss questions pertaining to bilateral relations and to cooperation in international affairs. The focus of our attention was bilateral ties, above all, in the context of preparations for the upcoming visit to Russia of President of the Republic of Korea Lee Myung-bak. I am sure that the new meeting at the highest level will be conducive to bringing our cooperation to a qualitatively new level.
We thoroughly discussed practical steps to strengthen further our political partnership, particularly in international affairs, and in the expansion of trade-and-economic, scientific-technical, humanitarian and other ties. We have a common understanding of the fact that our economic cooperation should not be limited to the energy sector alone. It needs to be diversified, extending it to a broad spectrum of fields, including high technologies, nuclear energy, outer space and informatics.
We thoroughly examined the situation surrounding the Korean Peninsula nuclear problem. Ours are generally coinciding approaches and we share the understanding of the need to take action to prevent any setbacks here. It is necessary to overcome the present stage and return to the fulfillment by all participants of the six-party talks of their obligations on the basis of full compliance with the earlier reached agreements.
By and large I am satisfied with the present talks. They have once again shown that the partnership of our countries has both strong roots and good prospects.
Question: Sergey Viktorovich, how could you comment on the different interpretations being voiced in a number of countries, including EU members and the US, with regard to the September 8 accord?
Foreign Minister Lavrov: Although we did not discuss this theme today, I understand the interest in the work to normalize the situation around South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Honestly speaking, we see quite a few interpretations, for the most part, unscrupulous. It doesn"t particularly surprise us. Similar attempts came after the first Medvedev-Sarkozy accord of August 12. To deprive unscrupulous interpreters of the possibility to do so, we formulated in an utterly concrete way the document approved by the Presidents of Russia and France in the presence of the European Commission President and the EU Secretary General on September 8. I have already said that it"s enough to read this document; everything there is very understandable and not ambiguously interpretable.
Based on this, I shall repeat once more. First, in the light of the guarantees of the nonuse of force against Abkhazia and South Ossetia, with the EU standing as a guarantor, Russian peacekeeping posts on the Poti-Senaki line will be withdrawn within seven days after September 8. The other positions of Russian peacekeepers in the security zones around South Ossetia and Abkhazia are all to stay unchanged. In order to depart these positions, a step is first needed not on our part but, above all, on the part of the EU. It has pledged before October 1, apart from the extra OSCE observers for this region, to also deploy in it at least two hundred EU observers. Only after this and only after the deployment of international observers really takes place, including 200 EU observers as a minimum, will we start a pullback of our peacekeepers from the security zones around Abkhazia and South Ossetia. We will complete it within 10 days of, I shall repeat, the physical deployment of international observers in these zones. The extra international observers will be deployed around South Ossetia and Abkhazia precisely, not in these republics. On the territory of South Ossetia and Abkhazia UN and OSCE observers continue working in the same numbers as before August 7. Naturally, the mandate for OSCE and UN observers in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, respectively, will in the future be subject to consent from South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It is to be adapted to the new conditions, of course. The appropriate entities will do that: the UN Security Council and the OSCE Permanent Council.
As to the Russian troops inside South Ossetia and Abkhazia, they have no relationship to the question of further peacekeeping. They are units and formations of the Russian Armed Forces stationed in these new independent states on the request of their lawfully elected leaderships for the protection of the Ossetian and Abkhaz peoples from any relapse into aggression on the part of the Georgian leadership.
I have, of course, heard that on the evening of September 8 in Tbilisi, when French President Sarkozy and European Commission President Barroso were present there, a document was signed declaring that EU observers would also be stationed in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Firstly, this is not true. Secondly, it is an absolutely dishonest attempt to listen to Mr. Saakashvili rather than explain to him what commitments the EU has assumed. This path is well known to all. It leads in the wrong direction. For us what took place and was discussed in Tbilisi has absolutely no significance. We will be guided by the obligations we have assumed in accordance with the treaties between Russia and South Ossetia and between Russia and Abkhazia and by the commitments we assumed during the talks with the European Union. In our turn, we will demand of the European Union the strict fulfillment of its commitments to us. Strictly speaking, we don"t care in the slightest what papers Mr. Saakashvili pulls out of his pocket and shows to reporters. Of him we demanded only one thing - to give a commitment not to use force against South Ossetia and Abkhazia. By the way, in a straightforward form he didn"t properly give these commitments. The European Union did that for him, which under the Moscow Document of September 8 is now the guarantor of the nonuse of force against South Ossetia and Abkhazia. We will insist on and demand the fulfillment of this commitment by our EU partners.
It is indicative that, according to our data, Georgian media carefully maintain a silence on the theme concerning the commitments not to use force against South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In parenthesis I shall mention that broadcasting of Russian channels to Georgia continues to be blocked. This is already an integral part of the "democratic" regime in Tbilisi. Therefore I would like that our European Union partners would be on the alert. I hope that they understand with whom they are dealing, for they simply can be deceived. We all know perfectly well that provocations, including military, are a hallmark feature of the policy of the current Georgian regime. That is why the EU must be on the alert and must seek fulfillment of the commitments not to use force against South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Question: For solving the Korean nuclear problem Russia has always proposed good ideas. North Korea has currently decided to suspend disabling its nuclear facilities. Do you have any concrete plan or good idea of how to solve this problem, because the situation has become deadlocked?
Foreign Minister Lavrov: Unlike some other participants of the six-party talks, we act as a team, collectively, together, the way we agreed from the outset. We strive to avoid any unilateral steps in the framework of this process which, as practice has shown, only create difficulties rather than ease movement forward on a mutually agreed platform. We presume that all six countries need to focus on the aims set for this format. The aim is to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and not solve the bilateral problems of some or other participants. Bilateral problems are always important, we understand that, but they need to be tackled in parallel and without prejudice to the solution of the Korean Peninsula nuclear problem. Here, by the way, the Republic of Korea sets a good example, which approaches questions of its bilateral relations with the DPRK precisely in this way, as well as the commitments we have assumed as part of the six-party talks. It would be great if all the participants of the six-party talks met their obligations guided by the letter of the existing agreements, rather than putting other demands without agreement with the other partners. And of course it would be important that all the DPRK"s partners in the six-party process would really participate in rendering economic assistance to Pyongyang. This I think would the package that would make advance possible.
Question: A question for both ministers. Could you comment on the rumors about Kim Jong-il"s health?
Foreign Minister Lavrov: I have no such information.
Question: In relation to the fact that Russia, as is known, calls for an embargo on arms supplies to Georgia, how could you comment upon the US decision to send specialists to Tbilisi to discuss with the Georgian leadership the question of rendering military assistance to Georgia?
Foreign Minister Lavrov: I know that not only the US wants to engage in restoring Georgia"s military capabilities, so also do other NATO member countries and then NATO as the organization too. They are all ready, as I"ve heard, to make their contribution. I think that this means only one thing - no lessons have been learned from the latest events. Absolutely ignored is the fact that, as a world record-holder in military spending growth in recent years, Georgia used the arms received from abroad to unleash war against a people whom Mr. Saakashvili regarded as his citizens. This I think lies outside the bounds of the notion of good and evil. And in the international discussion of ways to ensure security in the region, which we have agreed to begin on October 15, one central question will be preventing the rearmament of Georgia, of course. During the last two years we had been warning our American partners of the dangers inherent in arming the Tbilisi regime; had been urging them not to do that. In response we heard, from Dr. Rice and her "Caucasus experts," Matthew Bryza and Daniel Fried, in particular, that this would never happen and that the US would not allow use of force by Tbilisi to settle the conflicts. If, however, Mikhail Saakashvili decided to use force, then, I quote, "he may scuttle Georgia"s NATO prospects." Judge for yourselves who does what and who is concerned with what.
Mr. Minister and I prefer to continue discussing the peaceable tasks of the foreign policy of Russia and the Republic of Korea.
11-09-2008
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