Lavrov blasts Western powers, invites Trump to Russia
September 29, 2018, 9:15 am

Lavrov addressed the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly in New York on September 28 [PPIO]

Lavrov also revealed that Trump had also formally invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit the US.

Both leaders have in recent weeks hinted that they were looking forward to another summit meeting.

Putin and Trump last met in an official summit in Helsinki, Finland on July 16.

But earlier during his General Assembly address, Lavrov criticized the US and Western nations for trying to run the world based on rewritten rules of international diplomacy and treaties and the “parochial, self­serving ambitions of a small group of countries”.

“We observe the offensive of belligerent revisionism against the modern system of international law,” he said pointing to the now-defunct nuclear deal between the US and Iran.

On July 14, 2015, the P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), the European Union and Iran reached a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran’s long-term nuclear programme.

Lavrov also delivered a warning against NATO expansion in Europe: “We are concerned about the desire to open yet another line of confrontation in Europe – this time in the Balkans. The states of the region are being insistently drawn into NATO.”

On Syria, Lavrov said that UN involvement in the war-ravaged country should focus on infrastructure construction and restoration in order to facilitate the return of some eight million Syrian refugees.

“The assistance in addressing these tasks in the interests of all Syrians without any double standards must become the priority of the international efforts and the activities of the UN organizations,” he said.

The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies