CARACAS, Venezuela (AFP) — Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called Tuesday for like-minded countries to “join forces” against Western sanctions “blackmail,” as the longtime diplomat continued his tour of Latin America.
Discussing Russia’s war on Ukraine with Venezuelan counterpart Yvan Gil in Caracas, Lavrov referred to allies Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua as countries “that choose their own path.”
All are, like Russia, the subject of damaging economic sanctions, he pointed out.
“It is necessary to join forces to counter the attempts of blackmail and illegal unilateral pressure of the West,” Lavrov said at a joint press conference with Gil.
Russia’s top diplomat is on a weeklong Latin American tour that started in Brazil and will also take him to Nicaragua and Cuba — countries whose leftist governments have hostile relations with the United States.
On Russia’s war, Lavrov said: “We will resolve the situation” by upholding the principles of the United Nations’ founding charter on the “sovereign equity of states, on the principle of indivisibility of security.”
“Our task is to ensure that the UN charter is fully implemented, that the right to self-determination is not eliminated when it suits the West,” he said, according to an official translation.
© Agence France-PresseG