FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Lavrov Engages Youth in ‘A Dialogue for the Future,’ for a ‘Common Vision of Where the World Is Headed’
Dec. 5, 2018 (EIRNS)—Yesterday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov addressed a group of young people attending the Dialogue for the Future meeting, organized by the Alexander Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Fund that the Primakov Centre for Foreign Policy Cooperation. Gorchakov was a brilliant Russian diplomat and foreign minister who showed extraordinary abilities in defending Russia’s national interests during his decades-long career in the mid-19th century, including when Russian naval forces supported the United States against the threat of British Empire intervention in support of the Confederacy during the 1960-65 Civil War. Yevgeny Primakov, as Russia’s prime minister, initiated on Dec. 21, 1998 what he called the “strategic triangle” of Russia-China-India cooperation, which was revived last week at the G20 summit with the meeting of Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Narendra Modi.
As Lavrov told the young people of many different nationalities in his audience, they were meeting
“to talk and gain information from different sources about what is happening in foreign policy, so that you can get together, express your opinions, listen to what others have to say, and try to identify things that constitute the main goal of diplomacy which is general understanding and balance of interests,”
according to the ministry’s website.
In the world today, Lavrov said, there is a real
“shortage of constructive approaches and stances aimed at forming a common vision of how to move forward, not only with regard to specific conflicts that need to be resolved and settled, but also in a much broader conceptual context—a common vision of where the world is headed and what methods will be used to regulate it.
“Problems have taken on a global dimension and they are clearly interconnected. No one can avoid particular risks even if they choose to stay within their national borders,”
said the foreign minister. Of the many risks he identified, Lavrov pointed to as particularly dangerous,
“attempts to move away from universal formats which are used to form consensus and to replace them with unilateral actions, such as blackmail, sanctions, extraterritorial enforcement of national laws.”
These, he said, “are in fact destructive for humanity and lead to confrontation.”
Perhaps, he continued, some will use these attempts to address their immediate concerns, such as raising GDP, creating new jobs, or improving the trade balance. But, in the long run
“all this will have a negative effect. So, it is necessary to understand that actions in the pursuit of short-term, self-serving gains can be ruinous, including in the long term, for those who undertake them....
“I am aware that post-Soviet countries and European countries are represented here. I would love to listen to what you have to say, primarily in order to better understand what makes today’s youth tick,”
he concluded.
