Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s opening remarks during talks with Minister of State, Minister for Foreign Affairs, African Integration, Overseas Citizens of Chad and International Cooperation Abderaman Koulamallah, N’Djamena, June 5, 2024

Ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to thank sincerely our Chadian friends for their warm and hospitable welcome. I thank President of the Republic of Chad Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno and my colleague Minister of State, Minister for Foreign Affairs, African Integration, Overseas Citizens of Chad and International Cooperation Abderaman Koulamallah for the useful, informative and eventful talks. This is my first visit to Chad. I would like to profit by this occasion and once again congratulate my counterpart on being appointed to this high post.   

Symbolically, the Russian Foreign Minister’s first visit to the Republic of Chad takes place during the year, when we mark the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between our countries.  Earlier today, we recalled the USSR’s contribution to the decolonisation process, including its assistance to Chad in gaining independence. We should preserve these traditions, as Mr Minister stressed, for the younger generations to remember our common history. 

We have appraised positively the progress in our relations. We maintain regular political dialogue. In January 2024, Mr Mahamat Idriss Deby, then the President of the Transitional Period of Chad, paid an official visit to Moscow and held substantive talks with President of Russia Vladimir Putin.  I was in regular contact with the previous Foreign Minister of Chad, including during the Second Russia-Africa Summit in St Petersburg in July 2023. Today, we have agreed to intensify the work across the board to bring our relations to a qualitatively new level.

We congratulate our Chadian colleagues on the success of the presidential election that marked the end of the transitional period and the country’s return to the civilian rule. We actively support the Chadian president’s policy to stabilise all areas of life.

We have confirmed our shared interest in expanding Russian-Chadian trade, economic, and investment cooperation. There are numerous initiatives here, which require a focus on both sides, primarily from economic and financial agencies, as well as business communities.  Today, we discussed this in detail. We are glad that a Chadian delegation is taking part in the SPIEF-2024. This is a good opportunity for establishing contacts with potential business partners.

We have an interest in developing mineral resources, geological prospecting, and energy, as well as the construction of infrastructure facilities, agriculture, healthcare, and education. At a meeting today, President of the Republic of Chad Mahamat Idriss Deby said he would personally direct the activities of his country’s ministries and agencies, which will be involved in implementing mutually beneficial projects in conjunction with their Russian partners in the above areas and more.

We appreciate bilateral humanitarian cooperation, including the training of Chadian specialists at the Russian universities. We have agreed to use education to establish direct contacts between the higher educational institutions of both countries which we practice in our relations with many African countries. I’m confident that it will work for the Russian-Chadian relations as well.

We have been successfully involved in traditional military and military-technical cooperation for a long time now. Today, we obtained a confirmation of interest in providing the Chadian armed forces with the Russian equipment, especially now that Chad needs to strengthen its defence capabilities in the face of continuing terrorist threats that come primarily from Libya after NATO forces destroyed that country and its statehood in 2011.

We have close and in many instances overlapping positions on key regional and global issues. Like our Chadian friends, we believe that democratisation of international life, ensuring the sovereign equality of all states - large or small - as laid out in the UN Charter, and implementing the principles of the Charter in their entirety and interrelation rather than selectively (depending on the case at hand) is imperative and critically important.

As part of the ongoing work to reform the UN Security Council, we are interested in ensuring the African countries’ rightful place in this main organisation ensuring international interaction in matters of peace and security. African countries share a common position. We treat it with respect and will push to ensure that the interests of Africa, as well as Latin America and Asia, are fully taken into account no matter how the reform plays out eventually.

We are grateful to our partners for supporting Russia’s numerous initiatives at the United Nations. We will support coordination at other multilateral venues as well.

We focused particularly on the Libya crisis and the situation in the Sahara-Sahel area and West Africa. We share our approaches to Libya. We believe all outside players must respect the Libyan people’s fundamental and long-term interests and facilitate the launch of a nationwide and inclusive political process involving all political forces in that country without exception.

The Sahara-Sahel area is plagued by the problems that do not go away and just get worse. Just like our Chadian friends, we are convinced that the settlement in this part of Africa, as well as resolving other crises ravaging the continent, should rely on the “African solutions to African problems” principle. The international community should support the solutions developed by the Africans and help them implement these solutions.

I assured our Chadian friends that Russia was willing to continue to make a constructive contribution to the efforts designed to stabilise the situation in the Sahara-Sahel and help the countries of the region, including Chad, improve the combat effectiveness of their national armed forces and the training of military and law enforcement personnel.

We are grateful to our Chadian colleagues for understanding what is happening in Ukraine, the root causes of this crisis, and the actions we had to take to prevent the creation of direct military threats to Russia’s security right on our borders, as well as the discrimination against the Russian people who had lived on these territories for centuries and where, 10 years ago, they refused to acknowledge the results of the Western-backed anti-constitutional coup d’état.

We are interested in promoting our dialogue across all areas. President of the Republic of Chad Mahamat Idriss Deby shared today deep thoughts about the trends that are unfolding worldwide, and how important it is to fortify the processes leading to genuine multipolarity, equality of rights, and mutually respectful dialogue of all countries without exception in order to arrive at a balance of interests whenever needed.

We discussed Russia-African Union interaction, with two Russia-Africa summits held in the recent past. The second one took place in St Petersburg in July 2023. Following the summit, a ministerial Russia-Africa Partnership Forum was created. This forum will meet for the first time in Sochi in November. I invited my colleague to take part in this event which will be important to make sure that the agreements negotiated by the heads of state get implemented.