FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Zakharova Reiterates that Russia Seeks Above All Cooperation and International Security
March 6, 2018 (EIRNS)—Challenged during her March 2 press briefing as to whether President Vladimir Putin was bluffing when he revealed Russia’s new weapons capabilities in his State of the Nation address the day before, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was characteristically blunt, replying: “I think a lot of people would want it to be just a bluff.”
Zakharova used the follow-up question—can the international community ascertain the existence of these missiles?—as an opportunity to elaborate Russia’s continuing policy that all nations “should resolve jointly all the issues that our country thought would arise to threaten international stability and security.” She recalled three specific offers put forward by Russia in recent decades as exemplary.
A few years ago, Russia organized large-scale news conferences to take up the question of anti-missile defense, to which Russia’s Western partners were invited for an in-depth, serious discussion of Russia’s
“vision of global security that would not have the world divided into safe and unsafe areas and security privatized by individual capitals and regions. After all the statements and concept documents, it was a real invitation to do concrete work,”
Zakharova recalled.
The only response Russia received to that proposal, she went on, was
“a military build-up close to our borders, stepped up aggressive rhetoric, and new more horrifying armament concepts that aimed to contain a certain aggressor (which in recent years was meant to be solely Russia). There used to be an effort to be more hush-hush about the identity of that aggressor. In recent years, however, it has been stated publicly.”
She likewise cited President Putin’s 2007 speech in Munich; “there was a lot in that speech that showed that Russia had foreseen what the international community should have considered.” (In that speech, which fell upon the West like a bombshell, Putin ripped apart the danger to the world as a result of the U.S. drive to establish a unipolar world, and called for the nations of the world “to seriously think about the architecture of global security,” so that all participants benefit.)
Lastly, Zakharova cited President Putin’s speech at the 2015 UN General Assembly—the speech in which Putin proposed the creation of “a genuinely broad international coalition against terrorism, similar to the anti-Hitler coalition.”
“Was it not an invitation to start a dialogue on a concrete subject that would require collective action? Even if some people thought that anti-missile defense is not an issue where cooperation with Russia would be beneficial, pragmatic and serve a political purpose, no one can really say that cooperation on counter-terrorism is pointless. It benefits all, from politicians to the ordinary people. That speech is worth remembering,”
Zakharova said.
“So I want to say once again that we have always been and will always be open to cooperation in various areas, and this principle underpins modern Russia.”
