The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, accused the United States of abandoning internationally recognized diplomatic conventions in pursuit of its own interests, mainly with regard to the control of energy markets, in an interview broadcast on Friday.
Lavrov, interviewed by Russian state television, said that Washington, in its negotiations with Latin America and the Middle East, was ‘taking us back to a world where nothing existed’ in international law.
“The United States officially declared that no one can give them orders,” he said in the interview, the text of which was published on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
‘They care only about their own welfare and are ready to defend that welfare by any means — coups, kidnappings or the assassinations of leaders of countries that possess natural resources that Americans need.’
“Venezuela, Iran — our American colleagues do not hide that this is about oil. They have a doctrine of domination in global energy markets.”
Lavrov was alluding to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a U.S. military operation in January and to the death of the then Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in joint airstrikes by the United States and Israel at the end of February.
The United States, according to Lavrov, ‘isolated’ Europe, urging European countries to abandon the Nord Stream gas pipeline, now damaged, which transported Russian gas to Germany, and supporting the European Union’s calls to discourage Hungary and Slovakia from buying Russian gas.
‘This is not an approach to international relations. It is an attempt to revert to the colonial era,’ Lavrov said.
Even while seeking a deal for the four-year war in Ukraine, he said, the United States was promoting the benefits of ‘enormous economic opportunities’.
‘At the same time, everything I have just described is happening in parallel. We are being pushed out of all global energy markets,’ said he.
‘If we are ready to undertake mutually beneficial projects on our territory and provide Americans with what interests them… then our interests must also be respected. So far, we are not seeing that.’
