Russia calls for sustainable security architecture in Eurasia

By Burc Eruygur

ISTANBUL (AA) - Russia’s foreign minister on Friday called for the formation of a sustainable security and cooperation architecture throughout the Eurasian continent.

“The task is to build a sustainable architecture of security and cooperation throughout Eurasia together with constructively minded states and relying on existing integration associations,” Sergey Lavrov told a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart Sergey Aleinik in Moscow.

Saying NATO is increasing its activities on the borders of the union state between Russia and Belarus, Lavrov said the outcomes from the Vilnius summit in July confirmed the alliance’s “commitment to the aggressive and assertive containment” of Moscow and Minsk.

Russia and Belarus are formally part of a union state and have been in talks for years to move closer together, a process that has accelerated in recent years.

“It is in the common interests to form a strong military-political foundation that would contribute to the resolution and prevention of conflicts, and would also exclude the possibility of military or other forceful dictatorship and domination on the part of non-regional players,” Lavrov said.

He added that many international mechanisms are interested in conducting joint work on Eurasian security, such as the CSTO, CIS, SCO, Arab League, GCC and ASEAN.

Following the meeting, Aleinik told a press conference that Belarus expects the process of its accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to be completed in the near future.

He said Belarus and Russia intend to strengthen their coordination on international platforms, including during Moscow’s chairmanship in the BRICS economic group next year.

“No matter how hard our ill-wishers try, we achieve reliable, good results at every stage, we see progress and prospects. We will move further in this direction, we clearly agreed on this during the board meeting,” he said.