Candid talks with Azerbaijan, Kiev's worries: Lavrov's statements

Candid talks with Azerbaijan, Kiev's worries: Lavrov's statements The Russian foreign minister said that the Kiev regime is worried that the Iran conflict is distracting the West from providing total support in the conflict with Russia© Sergey Bulkin/TASSMOSCOW, July 17. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described his talks with Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov on Friday as productive and candid. He said that they highlighted that relations between the two nations were progressing nicely. He also spoke on Ukraine, saying that the Kiev regime is worried that the Iran conflict is distracting the West from providing total support in the conflict with Russia. TASS has compiled the key statements of the foreign minister. The Ukrainian conflict The Kiev regime is worried that resolving the conflict over Iran is distracting Western countries from their absolute support for Ukraine: " As regards the impact on the Ukraine crisis, the Ukrainian regime is concerned that this situation [around Iran] may distract attention from support that this regime is seeking from the West on an increasing scale. This has distracted the United States too, which Europe would like to draw into unequivocal support for the Kiev regime." European leaders - for example, French President Emmanuel Macron - at public events "openly and proudly" say that they were able to "drag the United States from the position of Anchorage, which no longer exists, to the position of unconditional, unequivocal support for Ukraine as a reflection of European values." Russia accepted the proposals of US President Donald Trump in Alaska, while Europe and Vladimir Zelensky are trying to get the US leader to renege on what was agreed: "We accepted Trump's proposals in Alaska, his European allies and, of course, Mr. Zelensky himself are trying to get him to move away from these proposals." Russia has repeatedly demonstrated its goodwill towards resolving the conflict in Ukraine, but not a single agreement has been implemented by the Kiev authorities: "We have repeatedly demonstrated goodwill starting from 2014 and 2015. We upheld all agreements between the Ukrainian leadership -- regardless of who came to power there -- and the opposition. We supported the European Union’s initiatives presented by Germany and France in 2014 and 2015, as well as those adopted in Paris in 2019, which also involved Zelensky. All the agreements reached there suited us, and we supported them. However, neither the Zelensky regime nor the [Pyotr] Poroshenko regime that preceded it implemented any of those agreements." As for The Washington Times journalists who wrote a story saying that Russia allegedly did not agree to US President Donald Trump's proposals on Ukraine at the Alaska summit, they have "no shame." Relations between Russia, Azerbaijan The talks with Bayramov were "useful, informative, and trust-based": "We noted the progressive development of our relations in the spirit of friendship, good neighborliness, and the declaration on allied cooperation, which was signed by the presidents of [Russia and Azerbaijan] Vladimir Putin and [Ilham] Aliyev in Moscow on February 22, 2022." Direct contacts between Russian and Azerbaijani media should help provide unbiased coverage of relations between the two countries: "We are interested in direct contacts between media representatives helping to resolve certain misunderstandings and provide more objective coverage of our relations. "Unfortunately, there are still numerous people on both sides who want to show these relations in a less than attractive light." Russia and Azerbaijan have reached "an important agreement to pay more attention to media coverage of relations in all areas between the countries." The 3+3 format and the North-South project The 3 + 3 format (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and Russia, Iran, Turkey) for the South Caucasus has sufficient potential to develop regional cooperation against the background of Western actions: "We touched upon attempts by countries in the collective West to use the South Caucasus as an arena for geopolitical confrontation. In this context, we see considerable potential for regional cooperation as part of the `3 + 3’ platform that unites the three South Caucasian countries of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia and their neighbors, Russia, Iran and Turkey. There is a conviction that the North-South international transport corridor project will soon start to be implemented: "There is interest from all three sides." The Middle East The crisis in the Strait of Hormuz is dragging on, and the global economy and "global transport routes are suffering from it." The possible closure of the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait will lead to a serious blow to the global oil market: "There are also economic risks because the Strait of Hormuz is a key artery. Right now it is not free. Moreover, the Houthis have stated that if military actions against Iran continue they might block the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which borders the Arabian Peninsula to the west, and that would likely be very bad for global trade, primarily in oil, though not exclusively." Russia is in contact with the parties involved in the conflict over Iran, and calls for a ceasefire: "Of course, in our contacts with all the parties involved, we call for an early ceasefire and a return of the situation to the moment when the Strait of Hormuz was completely free and functioning without any problems, without any tolls." The US-Iran settlement memorandum is not being implemented meaning risks to security in the Middle East remain: "Security risks persist. The Israeli leadership has publicly stated that it is not bound by the provisions of the memorandum. President [of the United States Donald] Trump also said that this memorandum has already ceased to exist for him, but Israel is quite active and, I would say, persistently pushing its line in southern Lebanon and southern Syria." 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