PRESS RELEASE
Head of Russian Security Council Lays Out ‘Vision of Global Security’
Nov. 1, 2016 (EIRNS)—In an interview with Sputnik, Russian Security Council head Nikolai Patrushev reviews what Moscow considers major threats to Russia’s security and lays out a "vision of global security" in five steps.
"Its essence is simple, and includes the primacy of international law, the priority of the peaceful resolution of conflicts within the existing frameworks of international organizations, led by the United Nations, the inadmissibility of backroom agreements and unilateral actions, bloc politics, and the unacceptability of interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states,"
Patrushev says.
Sputnik introduces Petrushev by saying that it is as if President Vladimir Putin were speaking:
"Given the Security Council’s status as an advisory body reporting to the president, Patrushev’s word is basically the Kremlin line on national security issues."
Moscow considers as major threats in the order: the NATO build-up, terrorism, and tensions in the Korean Peninsula, Patrushev says.
He stresses that the Security Council is part of a cooperation process within a series of institutions, which include the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa): "Our main goal is to ensure Russia’s interest—
to create the conditions for sustained economic and social development, and to strengthen sovereignty and constitutional order."
Then he says the following on the U.S.:
"We are ready to cooperate with our American partners on the basis of equality and mutual respect for one another’s interests. Right now, Russia is listed among the main threats to U.S. national security. We cannot but be surprised by [the] kinds of criteria Washington thinks in, when it puts Russia on a par with Daesh [ISIS] and Ebola in its national security strategy."
Unfortunately, Patrushev noted,
"when such sentiments prevail in the minds of American politicians, and when these stereotypes are projected onto ordinary citizens by the media, it is hardly possible to establish a full and comprehensive dialogue on a wide range of issues."
He stresses that U.S. missile defense systems on the border with Russia can launch cruise missiles whose range includes many facilities of Russia’s strategic nuclear infrastructure. "The U.S. naturally denies this capability, but does not offer any real arguments."
Reading the documents of the recent NATO meeting in Warsaw, you would think that nothing has changed since the Cold War, Patrushev says. Nevertheless,
"Russia continues to use the Russia-NATO dialogue platform, and to work on bilateral agreements on the prevention of incidents on the high seas and in the air."
Ever the optimist, Patrushev stressed that he was confident
"that with the joint efforts of the world community, it will eventually become possible to build an effective architecture of common and indivisible security, in which military and political blocs will become a useless anachronism."
Notably, Patrushev says that the impression is that the Russian-U.S. negotiations on Syria
"were used by Washington [merely] to delay time to allow the militants to regroup. Today we see the result: more and more groups on Syrian territory which had worked with the U.S. have merged with Nusra."
