PRESS RELEASE

Lavrov Blasts NATO Interference in Ukrainian Internal Affairs

Dec. 4, 2013 (EIRNS)—This release was issued today by the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in Brussels for the NATO-Russia Council meeting today, responded sharply to a NATO Foreign Ministers statement released yesterday that attacked the Ukrainian government of Viktor Yanukovych for refusing to commit suicide by joining the European Union, and for supposed "repression" of pro-EU protestors. Lavrov denounced the NATO statement as "interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign country," and added, "I do not understand why NATO adopts such statements." He also criticized NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen for responding to a question about possible Russian military intervention in Ukraine. "I cannot understand why such questions are asked. It helps to create a distorted picture and sends a wrong signal which may cause wrong understanding," he warned.

Lavrov also used the occasion to reiterate a point both he and Russian President Putin had made a few weeks ago, when the P5+1 breakthrough on Iran's nuclear program was first announced: that NATO no longer needs a new missile defense shield in Eastern Europe after the interim agreement with Iran. Speaking at a press conference at NATO headquarters after a meeting with NATO foreign ministers this afternoon, Lavrov said that "My colleagues said they are satisfied with the progress, even a breakthrough in the situation with the Iranian nuclear program....

"We noted that if the arrangement is implemented fully, if the Iranian nuclear program is fully resolved and if the Iranian nuclear program is placed under the complete and tight control of the IAEA, the reasons that are now given for the creation of the European segment of the missile defense system will become invalid," he was quoted as saying by Voice of Russia.