Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement following talks with UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, Moscow, March 17, 2022

Ladies and gentlemen,

My Emirati colleague and friend Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and I have discussed in detail a wide range of issues related to our bilateral relations and international agenda.

For obvious reasons, we paid a great deal of attention to the Ukrainian developments. We spoke in detail about the goals and objectives of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine to protect people from the Kiev regime, and to demilitarise and de-Nazify this country. I told my colleague about the measures we are taking to evacuate civilians from the combat zone and deliver emergency aid from Russia to the people in the liberated districts.

There was an important event yesterday. After many days when the Ukrainian authorities did not want to cooperate in evacuating people, we managed to evacuate 33,000 people from Mariupol. Most of them opted for routes that lead to the Russian Federation.

We also discussed the state of our bilateral Russia-Emirates relations. The Declaration on the Strategic Partnership Between the Russian Federation and the United Arab Emirates of June 1, 2018, outlines the special nature of these relations. Interaction between our ministries and government agencies has been developing actively.

Work is underway to implement the agreements reached during a state visit by President of Russia Vladimir Putin to the UAE in October 2019, as well as those reached during the following contacts of our leaders.

An intensive exchange of delegations at various levels has been established. I would like to emphasise the visits that happened as part of EXPO 2022 in the United Arab Emirates. Dubai hosted our meetings, including a visit by Prime Minister of Russia Mikhail Mishustin. On December 6-8, 2021, Valentina Matvienko, Speaker of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, made an official visit to the UAE.

Our trade and economic relations are also making good progress. We managed to achieve substantial growth in trade. Last year, it reached almost $5.4 billon, which made the UAE our top trade and economic partner in the Arab world.

The Russia-United Arab Emirates Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic and Technical Cooperation plays an important role. Its tenth meeting took place in November 2021 in Dubai. In late January 2022, Dubai hosted the 13th meeting of the Russian-Arab Business Council.

The Russian Direct Investment Fund and the Mubadala Investment Company, a sovereign wealth fund, are working well together. We noted that the Covid-19 response efforts based on the innovative Russian developments are a new and promising area of this partnership.

We are upgrading and strengthening the contractual foundation. In 2021, we signed an intergovernmental agreement on peaceful space exploration and a document on understanding and cooperation in aviation and in the hydrogen industry, to name a few.

We believe the signing of a free trade agreement between the UAE and the EAEU will play an important role in promoting economic ties. We are working hard on this. The documents are being coordinated.

We are closely cooperating at multilateral venues. This is a tradition. Since January 2022, the UAE has been a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. With this, we have new opportunities and new proposals on promoting the agreed-upon approaches and resolving global and regional issues.

We analysed in detail the situation in the Middle East and North Africa. To our great regret, a considerable potential for conflict remains there.

We welcomed the UAE’s recent steps on the Syrian settlement. In November 2021, my friend Abdullah Al Nahyan visited Damascus where he was received by President Bashar al-Assad.

We talked to our colleagues about our latest meetings with representatives from the SAR leadership and our work with the Syrian opposition, in particular, the promotion of the Constitutional reform via the Geneva process that will resume at the end of this month. We noted, as a priority task, the need to provide Syrians with urgent humanitarian assistance and restore the destroyed socioeconomic infrastructure in accordance with resolution 25-85 adopted by the UN Security Council in July 2021. We are convinced of the need to step up efforts on Syria’s rejoining the Arab League.

The current developments in Libya require close attention. We reaffirmed our reciprocal striving to help stabilise the situation by developing the political process and conducting national elections under UN aegis in a reasonable timeframe. It is necessary to ensure that all influential political forces that support the preservation of unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Libyan state, participate in these processes. We are confident that the problems that arose during the parliament’s approval of the new head of government should be resolved at the negotiating table through compromise.

We are concerned about yet another escalation of tensions in Yemen and around it. We have a common view that it is unacceptable to transfer hostilities to neighbouring countries. Russia condemns attacks on civilian facilities in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. We have the common opinion that the protracted Yemeni conflict cannot be resolved by military force. It is necessary to continue establishing the dialogue between the confronting parties, taking into account the views of all leading Yemeni political forces. In this context, we focused on the grievous socio-economic situation in that country. We emphasised the need for UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy Hans Grundberg to step up his efforts in all these areas.

We noted the importance of stabilising the situation in Sudan as soon as possible. We positively assess the efforts of the Supreme (Sovereign) Council to promote the political process with a view to holding general elections on an agreed-upon date.

We drew the attention of our friends to the Russian concept on ensuring collective security in the Persian Gulf. We updated this concept in 2021 and held expert consultations with the participation of many countries and regions, including the UAE. We agreed to continue our substantive dialogue on these issues at the expert level with a view to creating conditions that will allow us to move from the expert level to intergovernmental talks.

Naturally, behind these important processes, we cannot forget about the Palestinian issue in the sphere of the Middle East settlement. There has been no progress on this. On the contrary, problems continue to pile up.  

We confirmed our position on the resumption of direct Palestinian-Israeli talks as soon as possible. This should be done under the international legal foundation that was laid at the UN, the Arab Peace Initiative and the Quartet of International Mediators. The latter must work in close coordination with the Arab League.

I am sincerely grateful to my colleague for our joint efforts.