Russia Regrets US Opted To 'Deter' China, Russia Instead Of Having Dialogue - Lavrov

Russia Regrets US Opted to 'Deter' China, Russia Instead of Having Dialogue - Lavrov

Moscow laments the United States' focus on deterring Russia and China over engaging in dialogue, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday in comments on recent statements by US Defense Secretary Mark Esper

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th July, 2020) Moscow laments the United States' focus on deterring Russia and China over engaging in dialogue, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday in comments on recent statements by US Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

On Tuesday, Esper made a speech reviewing the Department of Defense's activities since he was appointed a year ago. In it, Esper mentioned that the department had spent the past 12 months deterring alleged aggressive activities by China and Russia, which are named Washington's "top strategic competitors" and "near-peers."

"About Mark Esper's statements, I don't know what to comment on, because if he thinks that the main task of his department, the United States Department of Defense, is to deter Russia and China, it means that this philosophy is professed by the current American administration, which is literally motivated by the desire to deter everyone except itself. This is the attitude, this philosophy of the Pentagon's leader is, of course, regrettable, because we are interested in developing a normal dialogue with all countries, including, of course, a country like the United States of America," Lavrov said at a press conference following a meeting with his colleagues from the African Union troika of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt and South Africa.

The Russian foreign minister ventured a guess that by talking about threats from Russia and China, Washington wants to divert attention from the US' domestic issues.

"We are for dialogue, for strategic stability, as proposed by [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin, including through his initiative to convene a summit of permanent members of the UNSC," he added.

During his speech at the Fifth World Holocaust Forum in Jerusalem on January 23, Putin proposed the organization of a meeting between the UN Security Council's permanent members Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and the United States. Later, in an article published in The National Interest international affairs magazine, the Russian president expressed hope that the Moscow-proposed summit would take place as soon as possible.