🎙 Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov's remarks at the General Debate of the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly

📍New York, September 28, 2024

💬 A few days ago, this building hosted a forum called the Summit of the Future.

Russia was supportive of the idea of the Secretary-General to convene it, since the crisis of our Organisation is deepening and something needs to be done about this. We devoted our efforts to preparing the summit. However, we were realistic in our expectations. There have been many ambitious events in the modern history of the United Nations which ended up with loud declarations which were soon forgotten. <...>

The current UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, just like Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon before him, has put forward an initiative under the slogan of a new start for global cooperation. This is a wonderful idea. Who could disagree? But what global cooperation is there to talk about, when the West has trampled all those unshakeable values of the globalisation that speakers on the podium talked so much about, trying to convince us that they would give everyone equal access to the goods of modern civilisation?

Where is the inviolability of property, the presumption of innocence, freedom of expression, access to information, fair competition in markets under fair and constant rules?

The Secretary-General speaks of global cooperation at the very moment when the countries of the West have unleashed a veritable war of sanctions against more than half, if not the majority, of the countries of the world, and the US dollar, promoted as an asset and a good for all humanity, has been crudely turned into a weapon.

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It is not late to breathe new life into the United Nations. But this can be achieved through restoration of trust based on the charter principle – sovereign equality of all states – rather than out-of-touch summits and declarations. However, while the trust is undermined, including through actions by the West to create its subordinate narrow formats to resolve crucial issues bypassing the UN such as control over the Internet or determination of legal frameworks to use AI technologies. These issues touch upon the future of the entire humanity and they have to be considered on a universal basis, without discrimination and aspiration to achieve unilateral benefits. Thus, everything has to be agreed on a fair basis involving all UN members.

Key points:

• The world faces massive challenges which require united efforts rather than confrontation and desire of global domination.
• It is obvious for the world majority that confrontation and hegemonism do not solve a single global problem. They just artificially restrain the impartial process of forming a multipolar world.
• Russia will always be on the side of collective work, truth and law, peace and cooperation in the interests of reviving the ideals laid down by the founding fathers.
• The unprecedented level of hypocrisy and aggressiveness of the western policy against Russia not only brings to naught the idea of global cooperation promoted by the Secretary General.
• The UN Secretariat cannot remain aloof from efforts to establish the truth in situations that directly affect global security and must act impartially in accordance with Art. 100 of the Charter, acting impartially and avoiding the temptation to play into the hands of certain states, especially those who openly call for the world to be divided into a flowering garden and a jungle, or for a democratic table to be set for dinner and those on the menu instead of cooperation.
• A more equitable world order unconditionally presupposes increased representation of the Global South in the UN Security Council. We reaffirm our position in support of Brazil and India provided a positive decision is reached in the framework of the well-known initiatives of the African Union.

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