State Dep’t: Lavrov’s Claims that the West is Monopolizing Global Affairs ‘Just More Hot Air’

(CNSNews.com) –  Russia’s accusations that the West is trying to monopolize global affairs are “just more hot air,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Wednesday. What Moscow is taking issue with – the rules-based international order – is something all U.N. member-states are bound to uphold, he added.

“And last time I checked, Russia still is a member-state of the U.N.”

Earlier in the day Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a meeting of the State Duma that the government new “foreign policy concept” will focus on ending the West’s “monopoly” over global affairs.

He said the “rules-based order” was something invented in Washington, London, and Brussels to further their own interests.

“Our updated foreign policy concept will call for the need to end the West’s monopoly on shaping the framework of international life, which should henceforth be determined not on its selfish interests, but on a fair, universal balance of interests, as required by the U.N. Charter, which enshrines the principle of sovereign equality of all states,” he said.

“The United States and their allies have been maniacally striving to revive the neocolonial, unipolar world order to prevent the unbiased process of establishing and promoting new world centers,” he said.

Lavrov outlined for the lawmakers steps Russia is taking to promote these “new world centers,” including enhancing a strategic partnership with China “that has reached a historically unprecedented level.”

“The foreign policy link between Moscow and Beijing cements the foundation of the emerging polycentric architecture and serves as a balancing and stabilizing factor in world affairs.”

Russia was also developing its “especially privileged strategic partnership” with India and strengthening ties with Iran, Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Turkey, Egypt, “and many other friendly countries on all continents.”

Pointing out that three-quarters of the world’s countries have not joined sanctions against Russia over “the situation in Ukraine,” he declared, “Attempts to isolate Russia have failed. Our enemies are forced to admit this too.”

Price rejected the claim that the U.S. is trying to monopolize global relations.

“What Foreign Minister Lavrov is referring to is the rules-based order, and these are rules that were written by the international community in the aftermath of the Second World War in an attempt to prevent and to forestall a Third World War,” he said.

Those concepts were written into the U.N. Charter, which all U.N. member-states are bound to uphold, he said.

“So any effort to paint these as the West imposing its rules or its views on any other country is nothing more than just more hot air – just more disinformation from our Russian counterparts, who have had no shortage of it in recent months.”

Price said it was Russia that was “attempting to impose its will on sovereign countries,” citing its invasion of Ukraine almost a year ago.

“We see it most vividly on Ukraine, where Russia has sent its forces, with all of their brutality, in an effort to impose its will over the people of Ukraine, to remove the government of Ukraine, and to deprive Ukraine of its sovereignty, its independence, its democracy,” he said.

‘Group of friends’

In his address, Lavrov highlighted several examples of what he characterized as models of a rising global pushback against Western hegemony.

Among them were the “Group of Friends in Defense of the U.N. Charter,” a coalition of like-minded countries formed in New York in mid-2021 with around 20 members.

Lavrov said the group defends “the principle of respect for the sovereign equality of all countries without exception, and non-interference in their internal affairs.”

More than half of the founding members are autocratic regimes targeted by U.S. sanctions, including Belarus, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, the Assad regime in Syria, and the Maduro regime in Venezuela.

Lavrov also pointed to the BRICS club of leading emerging economies and the Eurasian security group the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and noted that many countries were eager to join them.

Dominated by Russia and China, the SCO comprises four former Soviet republics in Central Asia (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan), as well as India, Pakistan, and newcomer Iran.

Other countries at various stages of the process of joining or associating with the SCO include Belarus, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Cambodia.

In addition to Russia and China, BRICS includes Brazil, India, and South Africa. More than a dozen countries are keen to join, among them Algeria, Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Thailand, and the UAE.

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