Interview of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia S.V. Lavrov to the Kommersant newspaper, 3 October 2012

Question: In the address at the recent Session of the UN General Assembly you several times stated that it is inadmissible to interfere in the internal affairs of states. Did you mean the events in the Middle East only? Or it is also important for Russia itself?

S.V. Lavrov: Certainly. I will not even try to be original, because not I invented that: the principle of non-interference in internal affairs is stipulated by the UN Charter. That principle is necessary not for Russia to feel itself in any way better or worse. The world order is based on it. It is the most principled provision, the fundamental principle of the international law. If we allow violating it or treating lightly such violations against some country not able to defend itself, then the chain reaction will be launched. The world will be simply plunged into chaos. We already see that tendency in the Middle East.

Question: The thesis on non-interference in the internal affairs was also stated when the termination of activity of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Russia was announced. What exactly made angry or upset Moscow in the work of the Agency? Why the USAID was actually turned out?

S.V. Lavrov: We are not angry or upset with anything. Any state has a right to sovereignly decide with whom and in which forms it should cooperate. We had an agreement of 1992, based on which the activity of the Agency for International Development was started in Russia. You imagine what kind of period 1992 was. The country was like disassembled and then, perhaps, the documents being signed with foreign partners were considered not very carefully. The agreement, which became the basis for activity of the United States Agency for International Development, was absolutely discriminatory towards Russia. It gave our American partners rights, which a normal state in other situation would hardly give. Without any reciprocal moves towards us.

We denounced that agreement a year ago. The American party took that normally. After denunciation the legal basis for activity of the Agency in Russia disappeared. The reasons why we asked to terminate the practical activity are described in the recent statement of the MFA. There is no legal basis, no need for us to receive grants, since the country has already become a donor. And for the activity of NPOs Russia itself allocates significant funds - the allocations were tripled on the order of the President V.V. Putin.

And besides the rest there were doubtful projects implemented by the Agency without coordination with the Russian party, which obviously had political overtone.

Question: Like which ones?

S.V. Lavrov: In particular, the projects in the North Caucasus, where the Agency did not think much choosing partners. Very dubious people received grants there. We told Americans about that not once.

I want to say one simple thing: there are no obstacles to continue implementing the noble purposes, which the United States Agency for International Development had in Russia. Whether that be aid to challenged people and children, education projects or other social projects. The American government can easily direct all those funds via other channels. The Agency is a part of the Department of State. And there are no obstacles for directing the same amounts via other channels to the organisations according to the new law on NPOs. Those who implement social programmes, deals with issues of health care, support of challenged people and so on do not even need to be registered as foreign agents. All that is stipulated by the last edition of the law.

So I do not think that there are objective reasons for such nervous reaction to that situation. I saw no nervousness by Hillary Clinton either in June, when I warned her on that for the first time, or in Vladivostok, where we met on 8 September and when I told her about that once more for them to prepare to the termination of activity of the Agency in Russia on 1 October.

Worth to note is that the denounced agreement gave the employess of the Agency the right to work as diplomats at the Embassy of the USA in Russia. As far as I understand there are tens of them. We do not ask them to leave. They can stay, but now let them do the functions according to the diplomatic status they have. Our cultural centres abroad do not have such immunity and privileges. Rarely only the head of the cultural centre has a diplomatic passport, if the host country agrees. All other work without diplomatic status.

In general I want to say: we just want to bring the legal base of our cooperation and interaction with foreign states in all fields - economic, political, cultural, humanitarian, field of contacts in terms of civil society - into compliance with the principles of equality of rights and mutual respect.

Question: Is there the same threat for European foundations working in Russia? German, for example.

S.V. Lavrov: No. These foundations act based upon interparliamentary agreements, which are adjusted, mutually acceptable and based upon principles of reciprocity and equality of rights. I see no reasons for trying to extrapolate the situation to other cultural centres and countries. America does not have institutions similar to Goethe Institut, Instituto Cervantes, British Council, Alliance Francaisе. As I already said, the USAID is a part of the Department of State. The institutions I mentioned are independent establishments, though also financed by government.

Question: There is an opinion that now, when Russia made a decision on termination of the activity of the USAID in its territory, the USA is for sure going to adopt the Magnitsky law imposing visa and economic sanctions on a number of Russian officials. And that will be harmful for those who at the cost of that law wanted to ensure the repeal of the Jackson–Vanik amendment, which is discriminatory towards Russia.

S.V. Lavrov: That is an absolutely wrong opinion. The Magnitsky law is to be adopted anyway. And it is not a cost for repeal of the Jackson–Vanik amendment. The republicans, as well as many democrates in the Congress, stated in public that the Magnitsky law is necessary by itself. At that many supporters of the law state that Russia does not deserve the repeal of the Jackson–Vanik amendment.

We can talk long on that topic, but the Jackson–Vanik amendment was imposed in connection with restrictions on exit of Jews from the Soviet Union. Such problems do not exist for a long time already. Natan Sharansky, when he got to know that the Jackson–Vanik amendment is still in force in conditions of the new Russia, said a witty thing: that he was in prison not for the sake of Bush's legs. The point is that the Jackson–Vanik amendment was extended under different pretexts. One of them was that Russia at some stage stopped exporting American chicken legs, which people called Bush's legs.

What about the statements that good American legislators at the cost of adoption of the Magnitsky law wanted to ensure the guaranteed repeal of the Jackson–Vanik amendment, they are figments of diseased imagination. Now that amendment is a problem for the USA itself. If it is not repealed, the USA will not enjoy the advantages it could enjoy with Russia's joining the World Trade Organisation.

To say that the events around the Agency for International Development were the final nail in the situation and now the Magnitsky law is to be adopted for sure means complete unawareness of the real events on the Capitol Hill. That law is actually becoming a symbol for those who wish to spoil the Russian-American relations. And they will not refuse that. We warned that adoption of the Magnitsky law will seriously damage our relations, the administration understands that, but says that it will be forced to promote a bill and Barack Obama will sign it.

Question: America says that without external pressure the Russian authorities will not finish the investigation in case of Sergei Magnitsky and will not punish the guilty.

S.V. Lavrov: Russia like no other state is interested in the soonest clarification of facts of Sergei Magnitsky's case. Death of any imprisoned Russian is a tragedy that needs a painstaking investigation. And that is being carried out. There are strict directions of the President of Russia to the General Prosecutor's Office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs regarding that. The criminal investigation continues. I will remind: the Russian branch of Hermitage International foundation, where sice 1995 worked Sergei Magnitsky, was suspected of tax evasion. He was a key figure in that case being a manager for taxes and audit. Also continues the investigation in other case, which is aimed at clarification of circumstances of death of Sergei Magnitsky and the extent of responsibility of the officials. Violation of conditions of Sergei Magnitsky's imprisonment represented by failure to render him the appropriate medical aid reflected the general problem state of medical services of detention facilities in Moscow. In that respect the government of the country cooperating with human rights organisations promptly took measures for improvement of the situation.

And playing with facts, their intentional misrepresentation, statements and acts verging on interference in the internal affairs of our country do not have anything in common with the declared "care for human rights", "formation of the rule-of-law state". The attempts of pressure on the investigative and judicial authorities of Russia are unacceptable for us.

Question: And how could Russia react to adoption of the Magnitsky law in the US?

S.V. Lavrov: Unfortunately, the tragic death of Sergei Magnitsky is intentionally used by certain political forces in the Western countries, which still think in terms of ideological confrontation, for artificial heating up of anti-Russian hysteria. And that happens in conditions when in the US itself there is the largest "prison population" in the world - more than 2 million people are imprisoned - and people die in American prisons every day. And at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp hundreds of prisoners are kept without any court proceedings in absolute legal vacuum, including the citizen of Russia Ravil Mingazov. Our repeated appeals to Washington regarding that have no results.

The behaviour of authors of the Magnitsky law in the US Congress exactly corresponds to the gospel aphorism about the mote in brother's eye and the beam in own one. Their proposed tactics of sanction blackmail also matches that - instead of maximal expansion of contacts between Russians and Americans up to the complete cancellation of visa regime between our countrues, what Russia stands for, they demand expansion of black lists and introduction of prohibitions on entry. Someone clearly wants to spoil the relations with Russia, to revive phobias of the Cold War period. That is not what we choose. We are open to intensification of trade and investments connections and partnership with the USA in other fields.

But if someone in America has illusions that it is possible to develop cooperation and simultaneously palisade us with new sanctions, it is better to say goodbye to them in advance. Attempts to mix trade and politics, to put pressure on Russia are going to significantly worsen the environment both for the bilateral political dialogue and economic cooperation.

Question: Considering the differences between Russia and the US on a whole number of important issues - missile defence, human rights and international issues - can it be concluded that the "reset" has failed?

S.V. Lavrov: When several years ago the US President Barack Obama and his team showed readiness to seriously renew bilateral connections and find solutions of the accumulated problems we welcomed that idea. At that we from the very beginning made it clear that to implement the tasks of our countries is possible only on the basis of principles of mutual respect, real consideration of interests of each other and non-interference in the internal affairs.

The cooperation vector determined then proved its value. We succeeded in expanding the bilateral dialogue, in achieving the significant practical results. Several important landmarks are: conclusion of the New START, Russia's joining the WTO, the recent entry into force of the Russia-US visa regime simplification agreement.

Of course there are a lot of problems as well. Unfortunately, America makes decisions on missile defence not taking into account our interests. The main thing for us is to make sure that the missile defence means being created by the US do not break the balance of forces which had been formed throughout decades, do not undermine Russian forces of nuclear deterrence. We need clear guarantees backed with the reliable mechanism of verification. Washington is not ready to provide them yet.

If speaking about the "reset", then taking into account the IT origin of that term it becomes clear right away that it cannot last forever. Otherwise it would be not the "reset", but the program malfunction. We should not become obsessed with the name of one or another stage. It is better to think about how to develop the relations. Or, speaking in IT terms, to update software.

And that is exactly what we are doing. We have a busy agenda with the USA. In future we plan on paying the special attention to giving a whole new dynamics to the trade and investment cooperation. The deeper our economic connections are, the stronger will be the "safety net" securing Russian-American relations against fluctuations of political conjuncture.

Obviously, we will have to set aside certain important issues until the election race in the USA ends. But our American partners are practical people. The pre-election rhetoric overseas will soon end and will yield to painstaking everyday work. We are ready for it.

Question: The President of the USA Barack Obama made it clear in his address at the UN General Assembly that despite the growth of anti-West attitudes and consolidation of role of the radical Islamites in the Middle East the US is still going to "maintain the changes". What do you think about that?

S.V. Lavrov: I would not like to comment upon that, but we already feel the "beneficial" influence of changes. During the Session of the General Assembly I met with the Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lybia and again raised the question regarding our citizens in Lybia who, to our mind, were unreasonably sentenced there to long terms of imprisonment. And my colleague answered: understand, please, that we have no state, we try to help you, but do not have leverages of influence on various structures.

In other words, we have not settled the consequences of the Lybian operation yet. And they exist not only because Lybia is not a centralised state and it is necessary to do a lot there in order to subordinate all leaders of clans to the central power. The consequences can be felt based on the present situation in Mali, where two-thirds of the country are controlled by people who made war in Lybia and who, obviously, have nothing else to do other than to make war. If they sincerely wished their country to calm down, they would have made that revolution, does not matter how to estimate it, and calmed down. No, those people have a completely different business. Now they are in Mali. Who knows, where will they appear next? The President V.V. Putin recently characterised that as a situation of growing chaos in the region. It is a very exact definition.

It seems to me that our Western colleagues, including the US, are confused to a certain extent. They have sowed a wind and are reaping a storm. We are doing everything possible to stop that storm. For that purpose it is necessary not to egg on the opposition, for instance, in Syria, to continue armed fighting to the bitter end - until they get the head of Bashar al-Assad, - but to make everybody sit down and begin peaceful negotiations.

Question: How will the situation in Syria develop?

S.V. Lavrov: Everything is simple here. There are two options. If the assurances that the number-one priority now is to save people's lives are sincere, then it is necessary to implement what we agreed upon in Geneva. That is to make everybody stop shooting and sit down at the negotiating table. If in fact the number-one priority is to overthrow Bashar al-Assad's regime, then we are not able to help in any way. The UN Security Council inherently does not do anything like that. And in the second case it is the instigation to continuation of the fratricidal war and we will have to understand that hundreds and thousands lives of Syrians will be the cost for that obsession with geopolitical task of changing the regime in Syria.

The choice is very simple, but, of course, frightful. During my conversations with colleagues I felt that they realise that there is no alternative for those two scenarios, but yet they are not ready to put the lid on their own geopolitical plans. It is sad.

Question: You repeatedly mentioned the misrepresentation of Russian reality by the West. The President V.V. Putin recently charged the MFA with a task of improvement of Russia's image abroad. Why is the image of Russia mainly negative in most Western countries? And can the MFA improve it taking into account the fact how West interprets such events as, for example, the case of Pussy Riot?

S.V. Lavrov: In contemporary world the image of any country consists of a whole number of components, all together defined as soft power. That term includes cultural and scientific presence of a state in the world, participation in aid programmes, achievements in sports, development of civil society, level of presence of national mass-media in the international information space, popularity of national language, achievements in education and health care and many other aspects.

Russia looks rather good taking into account a whole number of soft power components. Nevertheless the MFA pays a lot of attention to work on their consolidation.

However the image of a country in world information space has one more important dimension: how honest and unbiased are externally estimated the stands, achievements and failures of a state in internal and foreign policy. Unfortunately, Russia often faces significant misrepresentation of truth or direct lies on the part of a number of world mass-media. Enough is to remember how were interpreted the events connected with aggression of Georgia against South Ossetia in August 2008.

The same situation is with the propagandistic campaign around the case of Pussy Riot which was promoted in the West. Haste and bias of most comments coming from the EU and the US make us conclude that their authors did not bother themselves at all with studying the facts of the case, course of court proceedings and regulations of the Russian legislation.

Question: The West concluded that it was politically motivated process.

S.V. Lavrov: The investigation did not bring political charges against Pussy Riot at any stage of court proceedings. They were tried for act of hooliganism in the largest orthodox cathedral of Russia. The fact that so called "punk prayer" at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour not only falls within a number of Articles of the Criminal Code of Russia, but also has provoked the outright negative reaction of Russian society obviously seems to not disturb those who made statements regarding "restriction of freedom of speech" and "limitation of human rights". The attempts to link the court verdict with some "general pressure of regime on opposition" ignore the contemporary Russian realities which contrariwise are characterised by liberalisation of political life.

Question: Back to the Middle East: how strong have the events in Syria influenced the relations of Russia with those Arab countries which most decidedly oppose Bashar al-Assad? First of all with Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

S.V. Lavrov: The acute internal political crisis in Syria, which continues for already a year and a half, certainly made some corrections in our interaction with a number of Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and Quatar, because it revealed the known divergences in our approaches. At the same time I would not absolutise those divergences in views.

Contrariwise, all recent events obviously show that Arabs themselves, including Saudi Arabia and Quatar, are interested in exchange of opinions with us on Syrian problems, in joint elaboration of ways to their solving. It is emphasised during our regular contacts with them, which succeed both in bilateral and all-region format.

Particularly, in June I had a rather substantial and productive telephone conversation with the Minister of Foreign Affairs the KSA the Prince Saud Al Faisal who confirmed Riyadh's determination to further consolidate and develop different connections with the RF. It is planned to organise the second round of strategic dialogue Russia-Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (CCASG) in the capital of Saudi Arabia before the end of this year. My meeting with the Ministers of the CCASG countries, where we discussed the preparation to that event, took place on 27 September in New York. Naturally, we pay a lot of attention to Syrian topics. And I can assure you that our stand finds more and more understanding, and all Arab colleagues emphasise the necessity to preserve the active presence of Russia in the region.

No one wants the confrontation in Syria to continue, and our common task is to assist the soonest termination of bloodshed and fratricide in that country. For that purpose it is necessary to make everybody who is at war there stop and sit down at the negotiating table.

Besides that it is necessary to take into account the fact that the situation around Syria even though not being the priority now is far from being the only point in the agenda of Russian-Arab political dialogue. There are other important issues, our stands in which are traditionally close. That includes the Middle East settlement, first of all in terms of solution of the Palestinian problem, security ensuring in the Gulf, creation of WMD-free zone in the Middle East, inter-civilisation interaction and counter-terrorism. Finally, we should not disregard such fundamental segment as trade-economic cooperation.

Question: Russia recently hosted the APEC Summit. And why is Russia not very active in forming the infrastructure for raw materials export to Asia - much less active as, for instance, Australia, the countries in Central Asia. What is the reason for that? Does Russia fear the possibility to become a mere supplier of raw materials? On the other hand, the restrictions are being imposed on Asian investment to infrastructure and agriculture of the RF. Does Russia have a long-term strategy for development of Siberia using the resources of neighbours?

S.V. Lavrov: To date our hydrocarbon export goes almost exclusively in western direction - the European Union receives about 85% of Russian oil and gas export. The European direction, although being traditional for us, nevertheless has a number of peculiarities - the consumption of energy carriers there is growing slowly, the competition is more rough, and the prices sometimes can be compared with those in East Asia. There also are regulatory problems. We are first of all concerned about worsening of investment environment in the EU, so called Third Energy Package of the EU.

In that context the Asia-Pacific Rim direction is extremely prospective in terms of energy. The demand on hydrocarbon resources in that region increases much faster than in Europe. I will give only one example - the demand on gas in Asia according to the estimations of the International Energy Agency will be three times greater by 2035 and will be more than 1 trillion cubic metres a year. Developing that direction we resolve a twofold task - on one hand we urge to consolidate our role of reliable supplier of energy resources in that direction, on the other hand - to stimulate the economic growth in East Siberia and Far East regions, to create the infrastructure binding east and west of Russia.

Russia has all chances to become one of the most important suppliers of energy resources to Asia-Pacific Rim region. But developing the European and Asian vectors Russia does not intend to set them in opposition to each other. It is not our main task to play on differences in price conjuncture. Our main purpose is to ensure the integration of those markets, their stability and predictability. Exactly that will allow creating the conditions for sustained socio-economic development of Siberia and Far East regions of our country, raising the life level of citizens there.

In that sense demonstrative are the results of Russia's Chair in APEC forum in 2012. It became one of the parts of strategy of developing the Siberia and Far East regions. We first of all sought for limited incorporation of our country to integration processes in the region of Asia-Pacific Rim for the interest of assistance to national socio-economic development, first of all in Siberia and the Far East. Vladivostok, which is Russian window to the East, has a good infrastructure, which can and shall be used for consolidation of contacts with the countries of Asia-Pacific Rim. But of course it is only beginning.

We are going to continue working on development of the results of Russia's Chair in APEC. Approved were our suggestions regarding the use of transit potential of the RF for diversification of regional transport corridors, the creation of "smart" lines of supplies with application of modern satellite and computer systems, including GLONASS, the introduction of multimodal terminal complexes. The final documents of the APEC Summit in Vladivostok also comprise the approaches corresponding to Russian interests, which presuppose the build-up of cooperation for the purpose of increasing the share of natural gas in regional energy balance as the most environment friendly mineral hydrocarbon fuel and developing the corresponding infrastructure. It is clear that certain projects, including those in development of alternative trade routes (Trans-Siberian Railway, Sevmorput), are aimed at prospect and need significant preparation, but the partners stated their interest in participation in implementation of projects - and that is the most important at the present stage.

Question: Now there is an active work on the project of the Russian Federation Foreign Policy Concept in new edition. What differences will it have compared to the previous one?

S.V. Lavrov: According to the Decree of the President V.V. Putin dated 7 May 2012 "On Measures of Implementation of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation" the MFA of Russia must prepare the new edition of the Concept by December 2012. Such assignment is more than logical taking into account the quick changes in the world. We can see deep changes in the international landscape, tectonic shifts in redistribution of power and influence on the global level. During four years after approval of the current edition of the Concept many events took place: world economic crisis, disturbances in the Middle East and North Africa, development of regional integration, including that in the territory of CIS, which is most important for us.

According to the practice established in our country, the updating of the Foreign Policy Concept is linked to the beginning of the new period of presidential office - so now it is about specification of foreign policy priorities for the upcoming six-year period.

However, I would like to emphasise that it is about exactly the new edition and not about complete revision of that key document of the foreign policy of Russia. The continuity of foreign policy philosophy of the country, which is based upon such fundamental principles as pragmatism, transparency, multi-vector nature, consistent but non-confrontational standing for national interests is preserved.

In the new edition of the Concept we certainly will set forth the more active involving in diplomatic work all the existing instruments of the foreign policy, including, along with traditional ones, such methods as more active promotion of the economic interests of the state and business, use of soft power mechanisms, efficient informative support of the foreign policy and a number of other important aspects.

One of the differential peculiarities of work on the document is involvement of expert community and institutions of civil community in that work. That reflects the general tendency of expansion of their participation in elaboration and implementation of foreign policy solutions.

The work on the new edition of the Concept is oriented at its filling with adjusted and clear considerations of the practical actions necessary in conditions of underground processes in the international relations for appropriate securing of Russian priorities in a changing world.