Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement and answers to media questions during a joint news conference with Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Morocco Nasser Bourita and Assistant Secretary-General of the League of Arab States Hossam Zaki following the 6th session of the Russian-Arab Cooperation Forum, Marrakech, December 20, 2023

Mr Minister,

We concur in the assessments of the 6th session of the Russia-Arab Cooperation Forum that we just heard. It was a candid exchange, as it should be among friends. We shared our assessments and noted the convergence of our approaches on the majority of international and regional agenda items. We reviewed the entire range of challenges and threats faced by the countries of the Middle East and North Africa. We share the principle underlying our common approach to addressing these issues with our Arab friends: the domestic issues of the countries in the region should be resolved without outside interference through a broad-based national dialogue aimed at achieving public consensus.

We all adhere to the principles of the UN Charter, such as respect for independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. We see this as a crucial condition for ensuring regional stability, including the positive trend for the Arab countries’ increased role in facilitating the resolution of the above crises and conflicts.

We focused primarily on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict marked by an unprecedented escalation mainly in the Gaza Strip, but also in other places. We reiterated our position that, while condemning any and all terrorist acts, we believe it is also unacceptable to respond to them by collectively punishing civilians and the indiscriminate use of force in violation of international humanitarian law.

We reaffirmed our shared position in favour of achieving a sustainable ceasefire as soon as possible and providing assistance to the people of Gaza who are suffering from the severe humanitarian consequences of the blockade and the ongoing hostilities. We hope that the UN Security Council will soon be able to raise its voice in support of this long-overdue humanitarian step.

We agreed to interact at the UN, including in the Security Council, General Assembly, and other United Nations bodies, in order to advance the above approaches.

Speaking of “tomorrow,” I hope it will not be postponed for too long. Clearly, there is no alternative to a comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict within the internationally recognised legal framework which includes the creation of an independent Palestinian state coexisting peacefully and securely with Israel. This is our shared position.

We discussed the situations in Syria, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, and other crises-ridden hotspots. We expressed hope that Damascus' return to the League of Arab States would help create additional conditions for advancing a comprehensive political settlement in Syria and around it based on respect for sovereignty, unity, and the territorial integrity of that country.

We exchanged assessments regarding the situation in Africa, especially in the Sahel-Saharan region and in Somalia. We share the opinion that sustainable stability in the region can only be achieved by effectively opposing terrorism and extremism in whatever guise they may arise. In this regard, we emphasised the importance of consolidating the international community’s efforts to combat terrorist groups, wherever they may operate and regardless of the goals they may state to justify their criminal activities. It does not matter who their threats and actions are targeted at.

As my friend and colleague Nasser Bourita underscored, the assessments of the state of affairs in the region and in the international arena can be found in the expanded version of the Joint Statement that we adopted and that is now being distributed by our Moroccan hosts.

We declared we are in favour of further strengthening practical cooperation between the Russian Federation and the Arab world, including in the areas mentioned by Mr Bourita. I am referring to the expansion of political dialogue, security issues, economic, trade, investment, cultural, educational, and wider humanitarian cooperation. All this has been included in the Joint Action Plan. This is the second document of its kind, which covers the period 2024-2026 and provides important guidelines for building up practical cooperation for mutual benefit. We are unanimous in these plans and will bring them towards full implementation.

I would like to once again thank our Moroccan friends for organising this meeting and for their warm hospitality.

Question: The previous session of the forum in 2019 took place in a completely different world. That was before the pandemic, the hot phase of the Ukraine crisis or the new war in the Middle East. Few people have yet spoken of multipolarity outside of Russia. How have our country’s relations with the Arab states changed over this time?

Sergey Lavrov: I think that in 2019, when the fifth edition of the Russian-Arab Cooperation Forum took place, all the issues you enumerated were already considered pressing on the global agenda.

The Ukraine crisis began long before 2019. President Vladimir Putin recalled in great detail at a Russian Defence Ministry Board meeting yesterday how it had been orchestrated by the United States and its Western allies that sought to turn Ukraine into a containment tool against Russia, a springboard for creating direct threats to our security and for infringing on, discriminating against and even physically exterminating Russians living in Ukraine – in the areas that were settled and inhabited by Russian people and their descendants. These people, who wanted to remain in their own cultural, linguistic and historical framework, were openly threatened as early as 2014. Both Petr Poroshenko and Vladimir Zelensky passed many laws that directly banned the use of the Russian language in every aspect of peaceful life. Where the Verkhovna Rada had no power, the local authorities added their touch. A couple of months ago, the Kiev City Council adopted a decision prohibiting any manifestations of Russian culture and language in the daily life of the Ukrainian capital.

I cannot say that the Middle East was peaceful in 2019. However, nothing compares to the disastrous crisis that we are witnessing now and which our discussion focused on today. The intensity of the Palestinian-Israeli confrontation that we are seeing now has significantly shaped the agenda of today’s meeting.

We also mentioned the situation in Ukraine. The Arab League’s dedicated Contact Group on Ukraine visited the Russian Federation as far back as in spring 2022. We had a good conversation about the causes of the Ukrainian crisis; we considered ways to resolve it if Ukraine stopped being used against the Russian Federation, and the country’s Nazification and all steps to exterminate everything Russian were discontinued. We noted this initiative of the League of Arab States in the statement that we adopted today. I would like to emphasise that Russia welcomes any constructive ideas, including anything the League of Arab States could propose to create favourable conditions for a just settlement of the conflict on the basis of international law, such as ensuring the rights of ethnic minorities and the legitimate security interests of each state.

Indeed, Ukraine is a different story today. In 2019, neither German Chancellor Angela Merkel, nor French President Francois Hollande or President of Ukraine Petr Poroshenko publicly admitted that they were going to discard the Minsk Agreements. They were eager to sign that “paper” and get approval from the UN Security Council only to buy a few years to pump Ukraine full of weapons. We did suspect this in 2019; but now we have evidence, as they have confessed publicly and voluntarily.

We agreed that the United States considers itself entitled to usurp and monopolise foreign policy processes, what we see in Ukraine and in the Middle East, and as a result ruin the economy and undermine statehood, as was the case in Libya. Hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties, crumbling socioeconomic sectors, and massive refugee flows are the outcomes of numerous reckless schemes orchestrated by the United States in the Middle East. Their sole objective is to bring countries into line whose governments dare to pursue independent policies in their national interests.

In this sense, the developments in the Middle East and in Ukraine are driven by the same force. We are convinced that justice will prevail in both cases.

Regarding the Middle East, this crisis (speaking of positive outcomes) has exacerbated the issue of creating a Palestinian state to its limit. Today, we were united in our understanding that this matter should be resolved as soon as possible; otherwise, outbreaks of violence will continue.

Unfortunately, we keep hearing rumours and reports from anonymous sources suggesting that our Western colleagues, led by the United States, are once again devising secret projects to somehow suppress the situation, but still not let the Gaza Strip and the West Bank of the Jordan River unify. Essentially, this would obstruct and postpone indefinitely the creation of a Palestinian state. The key takeaway from the current international situation, and we share this understanding with our friends from the League of Arab States, is that this is an invitation to further crisis and further conflict. The UN Security Council resolution to create a Palestinian state must be acted upon immediately. Of course, that should be done after we jointly put an end to the ongoing hostilities and resolve the humanitarian issues.

The things we are discussing now essentially reflect a sharper global understanding of the fact that multipolarity is not someone's whim, not some “rules” that should underlie the world order according to Washington and its allies, but an objective historical process. Compared to 2019, the inevitability of this process has deepened and expanded worldwide, including in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Sahel-Saharan region. Regarding the League of Arab States, we see how this association is becoming an integral part of a multipolar world and a pillar of polycentricity.

Question (translated from Arabic): What is your assessment of this forum? How do you see Morocco's role in this sphere, especially Morocco's strategic vision for Africa?

Sergey Lavrov: We have been talking about the assessments of this forum for half an hour now. This is a well-organised event. It took us a long time to prepare it. First, the pandemic made it impossible to hold it. Then, we looked for mutually acceptable dates. Everyone agreed that Marrakesh was the meeting place. In the end, this is exactly how it played out. As the saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining.

The extra time that we had to get ready for the forum has led to a high-quality outcome. I mean the Joint Statement and the Action Plan, which contain absolutely clear and specific guidelines for further work. All participants in our meeting emphasised that the Moroccan presidency did a tremendous amount of work. This will go down in the history of Russia's relations with the League of Arab States. Maybe, if there are no objections, we will call this statement the Marrakesh Declaration.

Regarding the “gateway” to Africa, Morocco is one of our leading trade and economic partners. We are working with the Moroccans and many other members of the League of Arab States on projects with a potential for regional coverage. The creation of a Russian industrial area in Egypt, in the Suez Canal area, would crown the discussion. This project will have a regional dimension as well. We are in favour of maximising the number of projects that involve bilateral relations and also create a regional foundation to reinforce our friends’ positions in this region.

Question (translated from Arabic): What is the role of Egypt and Qatar in the Middle East settlement process? What do you think about today's UN meeting? Will the United States block the resolution?

Sergey Lavrov: In my answer to the previous question, I have said that we hope (I mean all participants in the Russian-Arab Cooperation Forum) that the UN Security Council will eventually come to understand its responsibility, raise its voice and use its competence and broad powers to put an end to the bloodshed and to move toward establishing a ceasefire and addressing humanitarian issues. It is truly a disaster unfolding there. I’m saying I hope that the UN Security Council will be able to make such a decision because, as you accurately stated, the United States has already blocked resolutions aimed at ending the hostilities or at least achieving a humanitarian ceasefire a couple of times using its veto or other means. It’s a tricky issue from the standpoint of international law.

We remain in contact with our representatives in New York. Morning has not come there yet. The vote is scheduled for today. Let's see what happened during the night hours here and in Europe.

You mentioned a new initiative that was unexpectedly put forward today with Qatari mediation. I understand that representatives from the Biden administration and the Israeli government visited Qatar. Suddenly, there was a proposal to introduce a new humanitarian pause (this is the mildest term) for a week to exchange more hostages and prison inmates.

Coincidentally, the UN Security Council has been reviewing the issue at hand for several days now. I do not rule out the possibility that our American colleagues will show up at the Security Council meeting in New York today and say they have a good proposal for a one-week humanitarian pause and suggest not adopting the resolution. I hope this does not happen and they are aware of their share of responsibility. However, I do not rule out the possibility of this happening.

We will strive to ensure that international law underlies all actions taken in order to overcome this calamitous crisis and move toward resolving humanitarian issues, and then, without delay, convene a conference or some other forum where the issue of creating a Palestinian state, based on existing UN resolutions, needs to be addressed.