MOSCOW, April 29. /TASS/. Russia stands against regional or political alliances created to resolve global issues, supporting the existing multilateral mechanisms within the UN, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with TASS First Deputy Director General Mikhail Gusman.”We are always calling for carefully maintaining the UN-centric system of world order created after the Second World War. Mankind has not invented anything more stable or reliable so far. The UN system is uniquely legitimate. The range of issues covered by the UN and its specialized institutions, foundations and programs is unique. It would be unforgivable, of course, to lose the wealth of multilateral mechanisms representing the interests of all UN member states,” he stressed.”If the issue on the agenda is creation of an organization on the regional or political basis, like the alliances the Europeans, the Western countries create outside the United Nations, if they create an organization with few (only those whom the organizers regard as democratic countries) participants, their ultimate ambition being to handle global problems for the whole of humanity, we cannot agree with this, of course,” Lavrov stated.A video conference that will be held by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council will be focused solely on the coronavirus topic, Sergey Lavrov said in the exclusive interview for TASS.”The date has not been set yet. I would like to underline once again that the video conference of the five leaders will be only discussing the fight against coronavirus to elaborate and support the decisions that were made by the UN General Assembly, G20 and the World Health Organization on a consensus basis,” Lavrov underlined.”We proceed from the premise that it will be important for the five leaders to deliver a joint statement which would give assessments and set tasks regarding the way we see interests of the global community in joining efforts to fight coronavirus. The draft statement is almost finished. We were ready to gather last week already and this week as well but certain P5 members asked for more time to determine their positions,” the minister replied.As for the personal meeting of the leaders of the UN Security Council’s five permanent member states, it will be devoted to all key problems of the modern world, Sergey Lavrov told Mikhail Gusman during the interview.”For now, we keep working on the conceptual content of this summit meeting. There is the general consent and the understanding it should be devoted to all key problems of the modern world, strategic stability and all dimensions of global security: military, political, economic and humanitarian. The discussion will focus on all those tasks which are high on the agenda of the world community, on how the five permanent members of the UN Security Council can translate into reality the responsibilities placed on them by the UN Charter,” Lavrov said.
