29 января / 2023
Sergey Lavrov’s remarks and answers to media questions during a joint news conference following talks with Bilawal Bhutto Zardari
Ladies and gentlemen,
I have had talks with my colleague, Foreign Minister of Pakistan Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. They were held in a traditionally friendly, confidential atmosphere and were very helpful.
We share the view that Russian-Pakistani relations are constructive and mutually beneficial in nature and are not subject to fluctuations in the international situation. We maintain an active political dialogue, including at the highest level. This May we will mark the 75th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between our countries.
Today we have agreed to work hard to build up trade and economic cooperation. In this context, we emphasised the importance of achieving the tasks formulated at the regular meeting of the Russian-Pakistani Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation, which was held in Islamabad on January 20.
The focus was on the promising energy sector, including the supply of hydrocarbons, as well as the construction of the Pakistan Stream gas pipeline from Karachi to Lahore. This is our flagship project.
Today we recalled that the foundations of cooperation between Russia and Pakistan were laid by the Minister’s grandfather, Ali Bhutto, who visited Moscow as Minister of Energy and signed the Agreement on Cooperation in Prospecting and Exploration for Oil (1961).
The fight against terrorism is the most important area of our joint efforts. We talked about this in detail today. During the talks, news came of another terrorist attack near a mosque in Peshawar. There are casualties. We join in the condolences. At the same time, we insist that the fight against terrorism must be intensified throughout the world and conducted without applying double standards or flirting with terrorist groups in order to achieve political goals. Some of our Western colleagues are often guilty of this sin. We have decided to continue our pragmatic partnership in the anti-terrorist area, both bilaterally (we have relevant working groups at the level of deputy ministers) and in multilateral formats, primarily in the UN and the SCO.
We are satisfied with the current state of Russian-Pakistani military cooperation. We maintain regular contacts between heads of the defence ministries and chiefs of general staffs. Joint combat training activities are being carried out, including those dedicated to increasing counter-terrorism capacity. The training of Pakistani military personnel in educational institutions of the Russian Ministry of Defence continues.
We discussed plans to deepen humanitarian, cultural and educational ties. We are pleased that Pakistani universities, in particular those of Balochistan, Peshawar, and Islamabad, have shown interest in establishing Russian language centres. We will continue to provide government scholarships for the education of Pakistanis at our universities.
We praise the dialogue between the two foreign ministries, including at the UN, which helps address topical regional and international problems more effectively.
We spoke much about the developments in Afghanistan, which are directly connected to the task of eliminating terrorist threats in our region. So far, unfortunately, this has not happened in Afghanistan. But efforts are being made. We have agreed to use the capabilities of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation for these purposes, in particular, the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group. We have a mutual interest in developing cooperation within the SCO. We have agreed that this is a promising format for multilateral and multipolar diplomacy. The effectiveness of this structure is evidenced by the growing interest on the part of non-member countries to cooperate more closely and join the membership.
We shared our assessments of the situation related to the consequences of the West’s policy of using Ukraine to unleash a hybrid war against the Russian Federation, including the creation of direct threats to Russia’s security on our borders and the steady transformation of the Kiev regime into an instrument for the destruction of all rights of Russians and Russian-speakers in the east and other regions of this country.
We want the world community to realise the depth of what is happening and take seriously the numerous proposals that were made on the European continent, and are now being made in the global context, about the need to approach security issues solely on the basis of equal and indivisible security for every state of our planet.
We are grateful to our Pakistani friends for their unbiased and balanced position on issues that, under the pretext of the Ukrainian crisis, are being thrown onto the agenda of international organisations.
I think that the visit of Foreign Minister of Pakistan Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari was very timely. We have clearly confirmed our shared disposition for further expanding cooperation in all areas. We will continue to encourage contacts.
To be continued...
https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1851133/
I have had talks with my colleague, Foreign Minister of Pakistan Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. They were held in a traditionally friendly, confidential atmosphere and were very helpful.
We share the view that Russian-Pakistani relations are constructive and mutually beneficial in nature and are not subject to fluctuations in the international situation. We maintain an active political dialogue, including at the highest level. This May we will mark the 75th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between our countries.
Today we have agreed to work hard to build up trade and economic cooperation. In this context, we emphasised the importance of achieving the tasks formulated at the regular meeting of the Russian-Pakistani Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation, which was held in Islamabad on January 20.
The focus was on the promising energy sector, including the supply of hydrocarbons, as well as the construction of the Pakistan Stream gas pipeline from Karachi to Lahore. This is our flagship project.
Today we recalled that the foundations of cooperation between Russia and Pakistan were laid by the Minister’s grandfather, Ali Bhutto, who visited Moscow as Minister of Energy and signed the Agreement on Cooperation in Prospecting and Exploration for Oil (1961).
The fight against terrorism is the most important area of our joint efforts. We talked about this in detail today. During the talks, news came of another terrorist attack near a mosque in Peshawar. There are casualties. We join in the condolences. At the same time, we insist that the fight against terrorism must be intensified throughout the world and conducted without applying double standards or flirting with terrorist groups in order to achieve political goals. Some of our Western colleagues are often guilty of this sin. We have decided to continue our pragmatic partnership in the anti-terrorist area, both bilaterally (we have relevant working groups at the level of deputy ministers) and in multilateral formats, primarily in the UN and the SCO.
We are satisfied with the current state of Russian-Pakistani military cooperation. We maintain regular contacts between heads of the defence ministries and chiefs of general staffs. Joint combat training activities are being carried out, including those dedicated to increasing counter-terrorism capacity. The training of Pakistani military personnel in educational institutions of the Russian Ministry of Defence continues.
We discussed plans to deepen humanitarian, cultural and educational ties. We are pleased that Pakistani universities, in particular those of Balochistan, Peshawar, and Islamabad, have shown interest in establishing Russian language centres. We will continue to provide government scholarships for the education of Pakistanis at our universities.
We praise the dialogue between the two foreign ministries, including at the UN, which helps address topical regional and international problems more effectively.
We spoke much about the developments in Afghanistan, which are directly connected to the task of eliminating terrorist threats in our region. So far, unfortunately, this has not happened in Afghanistan. But efforts are being made. We have agreed to use the capabilities of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation for these purposes, in particular, the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group. We have a mutual interest in developing cooperation within the SCO. We have agreed that this is a promising format for multilateral and multipolar diplomacy. The effectiveness of this structure is evidenced by the growing interest on the part of non-member countries to cooperate more closely and join the membership.
We shared our assessments of the situation related to the consequences of the West’s policy of using Ukraine to unleash a hybrid war against the Russian Federation, including the creation of direct threats to Russia’s security on our borders and the steady transformation of the Kiev regime into an instrument for the destruction of all rights of Russians and Russian-speakers in the east and other regions of this country.
We want the world community to realise the depth of what is happening and take seriously the numerous proposals that were made on the European continent, and are now being made in the global context, about the need to approach security issues solely on the basis of equal and indivisible security for every state of our planet.
We are grateful to our Pakistani friends for their unbiased and balanced position on issues that, under the pretext of the Ukrainian crisis, are being thrown onto the agenda of international organisations.
I think that the visit of Foreign Minister of Pakistan Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari was very timely. We have clearly confirmed our shared disposition for further expanding cooperation in all areas. We will continue to encourage contacts.
To be continued...
https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1851133/
