Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at a joint news conference with Foreign Minister of the Dominican Republic Roberto Alvarez following talks, Santo Domingo, April 30, 2025

Ladies and gentlemen,

I believe the talks that Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Dominican Republic Roberto Alvarez and I just had were very productive, and were held in an atmosphere of mutual trust. We discussed in detail bilateral, regional, and international issues, including our interaction at the UN.

We noted that this is the first visit by the Russian Foreign Minister to the Dominican Republic in the history of our relations, which will turn 80 soon. This visit is timed to coincide with the opening of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Santo Domingo. Our Ambassador Alexey Seredin and his small, but friendly and efficient staff have been working here for several weeks now. So far, they have been focusing on living quarters and office premises, which work needs time and effort. We will help them in every way we can for the Embassy to start functioning in its own premises as soon as possible and to focus on promoting our relations with the Dominican Republic across all areas.

The Dominican Republic is our promising partner in Latin America and the Caribbean. We appreciate the traditional friendly ties between us that are based on mutual respect and balance of interests. What we heard today fully confirms this commitment. We fully share it.

Both sides have noted the availability of significant opportunities for deepening our trade and economic cooperation. We covered promising areas of interaction, primarily, tourism. Tourist exchanges are further promoted by the implementation of the Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Dominican Republic on the terms and conditions for waiving visa formalities for mutual travel of the citizens of the Russian Federation and the citizens of the Dominican Republic. That is, travel for citizens of the two countries is visa-free. We discussed specific steps to expand the tourist flow to the Dominican Republic. We have an understanding of what we need to do to get there, including the resumption of direct air service.

We agreed to promote the establishment of direct contacts between business circles and support them every step of the way. There are initiatives from both sides, including the initiative of the Ambassador of the Dominican Republic to the Russian Federation, who, in conjunction with our Chamber of Commerce and Industry, is preparing a business forum to present the opportunities offered by the Dominican Republic. Russian regions will be invited to participate. This is a promising approach which we will promote in every possible way.

Of course, in addition to business circles, our respective governments have a stake in promoting mutually beneficial trade and investment projects. We agreed to take steps to establish and to ensure practical operation of the Working Group on Trade and Economic Cooperation on the basis of the existing bilateral Memorandum. Co-chairs from both sides will be appointed soon.

Both sides are interested in expanding cultural, humanitarian, and educational ties, including training professional staff. We provide government scholarships - and will continue to do so - to Dominican students studying at Russian universities.

The practice of Dominican police officers participating in anti-drug courses at the Russian Interior Ministry Training Centre in the capital of Nicaragua has a good track record. Dominican representatives also attend courses for the emergency services of Latin American and Caribbean states at the regional Russian-Cuban Centre for Rescue Training.  

We discussed our interaction at the UN. We noted that in most cases our positions overlap. We are grateful to the Dominican Republic for supporting a number of Russian initiatives, including resolutions on unacceptability of glorifying Nazism, the importance of preventing militarisation of outer space, and a number of other initiatives, including a recently adopted resolution - for the first time ever - on the importance of countering the revival of colonialism in any form.

We also focused on discussions about the UN reform and the multipolar world order trends. In this regard, at the request of my colleague, I provided a detailed account of the discussions and final decisions of the BRICS Ministerial Council meeting and the meeting of BRICS members with partner states, which took place in Rio de Janeiro on April 28-29.

I see that conceptually and substantively we can coordinate our actions, because the Russian Federation has an observer status with the Association of Caribbean States. We hope that it will soon acquire the same status with the Central American Integration System.

I would like to once again say thank you to our Dominican friends for the excellent hospitality and organisation of the events, and warm weather, too.