Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks during a joint news conference with Foreign Minister of the Republic of Nicaragua Denis Moncada Colindres following talks, Managua, April 19, 2023

Ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to thank our Nicaraguan friends for the invitation, hospitality and an interesting meeting with President of the Republic of Nicaragua Daniel Ortega, Vice President Rosario Murillo, Minister of Finance and Public Credit Ivan Acosta and Special Representative of the President of Nicaragua for Russian Affairs Laureano Ortega. These are the country’s senior officials who directly handle issues concerning expanding cooperation with the Russian Federation and bilateral strategic partnership.

We extensively discussed developing our relations in trade, the economy and investment. The key role belongs to the Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation. We agreed that co-chairs of the commission would hold another meeting on the sidelines of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in June 2023. Minister of Finance and Public Credit Ivan Acosta co-chairs the commission on behalf of Nicaragua and Head of the Federal Medical-Biological Agency Veronika Skvortsova represents Russia. They know each other well, including through work on joint projects in public healthcare, medicine and vaccine and medication production in Nicaragua.    

We have a good foundation for a qualitatively higher level of bilateral relations in investment and the economy. This foundation was built last December, when Special Representative of the President of Nicaragua for Russian Affairs Laureano Ortega and Minister of Finance and Public Credit Ivan Acosta visited our country with a large delegation and held a record number of meetings. Almost every meeting resulted in signing respective documents that are now being fulfilled.

On March 29, 2023, we signed yet another watershed intergovernmental agreement, on cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy. The first stage envisages using nuclear technology for non-energy purposes in pharmaceutical production and agriculture.

We enjoy far-reaching cultural and humanitarian cooperation, contacts in education, including both civil and military specialisations as our Nicaraguan friends study at the higher education institutions of the Russian Defence Ministry and Interior Ministry.

It is good to see that the links between Nicaragua and Russian regions are developing intensively. In 2020, Nicaragua opened an honorary consular office in Simferopol. Now we are working on a sister city agreement between Granada and Yalta.

Today we expressed our satisfaction with the progress in our cooperation concerning supplies of Russian automotive equipment, fertilisers, food, and cooperation in transport infrastructure projects.

The parliaments and political parties of our countries are also cooperating. An international conference was held recently, at Russia’s initiative, which was the first meeting of the international organising committee of the Forum of Supporters of Fighting against Modern Neocolonialism. The conference was attended by leaders of Nicaraguan parties. For this autumn, the Russian State Duma has scheduled the first Russia – Latin America interparliamentary conference. As we were assured today, members of the Nicaraguan parliament will certainly attend.

We highly value our Nicaraguan friends’ active assistance with strengthening the relations between the Russian Federation and the integration bodies in the region – specifically, CELAC and SICA. These organisations actively contribute to Latin America becoming an effective and influential centre of the emerging multipolar world order.

Multipolarity is a trend dictated by modern reality and an objective historical process which cannot be stopped – although the collective West, which has consolidated under the umbrella of American exclusivity, tries to achieve that. We note attempts to install their hegemony and dictate rules to everybody in every corner of the globe in the situation around Ukraine and NATO’s claims to play the role of a global guarantor of security, including in the Asia-Pacific and several other regions of the world.

Together with Nicaragua and other allies, we will continue to actively oppose these tendencies and draw attention to such unacceptable conduct in the modern world, including within the New York-based Group of Friends in Defence of the Charter of the United Nations – the principles that the collective West is seriously violating. 

I would like to congratulate our Nicaraguan friends and the entire Nicaraguan nation on Peace Day, a holiday marked for the first time today. It celebrates the prevented attempt of a coup that was made five years ago and was largely stimulated from outside the country. The Nicaraguan nation, led by President Daniel Ortega, withstood the challenge and restored public stability. Those who sought to undermine that stability were put to shame.

I wish all our Nicaraguan friends peace, prosperity, good health and stability. I believe that the development of our bilateral strategic partnership will be instrumental in these aspirations.

We will continue the dialogue with my colleague and friend, Foreign Minister of Nicaragua Denis Moncada Colindres, who has accepted my invitation to come to the Russian Federation with a return visit.