On 11 September 2001, the world changed,
and it rallied together in the fight against the threat of
terror, a threat that was common for all and knew no
boundaries. I am referring to threat of terrorism. The
world displayed an unprecedented level of solidarity by
rejecting old phobias and stereotypes. It seemed that
the global counter-terrorism coalition became a new
reality that from then on would define the development
of a system of international relations free from double
standards and beneficial to all.
The cohesion in the face of the deadly threats
emerging from Al-Qaida and other elements of
international terrorism made it possible to achieve
tangible success during the initial stage. But later,
problems began to appear. A painful blow to the unity
of the anti-terrorism coalition was delivered by the war
in Iraq, when — as it turned out later, under the false
pretext of the fight against terror and nuclear arms
proliferation — international law was violated. The
deepest crisis was thus created in a completely
artificial way and even today it is far from being
resolved.
Ever more questions are being raised about what
is going on in Afghanistan. First and foremost, what is
the acceptable price to pay in terms of the loss of
civilians’ lives in the ongoing counter-terrorism
operation? Who decides on criteria for determining
proportionality in the use of force? And why are the
international contingents that are present unwilling to
engage in the fight against the proliferating drug threat
that causes increasing suffering in the countries of
Central Asia and Europe? These and other factors give
us reason to believe that the counter-terrorism coalition
is faced with a crisis.
Looking at the core of the problem, it seems that
this coalition lacks the requisite collective
arrangements: equality among all its members in
deciding on strategy and, especially, operational
tactics. But in order to control the entirely new
situation that evolved after 9/11, which required
genuine cooperative effort, including joint analysis and
coordination of practical steps, mechanisms designed
for a unipolar world began to be used; decisions were
taken in a single centre of power, while the rest merely
had to follow.
We ended up with a privatization of the
international community’s efforts in the fight against
terrorism. The inertia of the unipolar world also
revealed itself in other spheres of international life,
including unilateral steps taken in anti-missile defence
and the militarization of outer space as well as in
attempts to bypass parity in arms control regimes,
expansion of political-military blocs, and politicization
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of the issues of access to and transport of energy
resources.
The illusion of the existence of a unipolar world
confused many. For some people, it generated a desire
to place all of their eggs in one basket. In exchange for
absolute loyalty, there was an expectation of carte
blanche to resolve all problems, using any means. The
emerging syndrome of complete permissiveness that
developed led to a rampage on the night of 8 August,
when aggression was unleashed on South Ossetia. The
bombing of the sleeping city of Tskhinvali and the
killing of civilians and peacekeepers trampled under
foot all existing settlement agreements, thus putting an
end to the territorial integrity of Georgia.
Russia helped South Ossetia to repel that
aggression, and carried out its duty to protect its
citizens and fulfil its peacekeeping commitments.
Russia’s recognition of the independence of South
Ossetia and Abkhazia was the only possible step to
ensure not only their security, but also the very survival
of their peoples, considering the previous record of
chauvinism of the Georgian leaders — starting with the
Georgian leader Zviad Gamsakhurdia who, in 1991,
under the slogan of “Georgia for Georgians”, ordered
the deportation of Ossetians to Russia, abolished the
autonomous status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and
later unleashed a bloody war against them.
That war was brought to an end at the cost of
innumerable human lives, and peacekeeping and
negotiation mechanisms were established with the
approval of the United Nations and the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
However, the current Georgian leadership has pursued
a persistent policy of undermining those mechanisms
through relentless provocation, and finally nullified the
peace process by launching a new murderous war on
the night of 8 August.
This problem is now closed. The future of the
peoples of Abkhazia and South Ossetia has been
reliably secured by the treaties between Moscow and
Tskhinvali and Sukhumi. With the implementation of
the Medvedev-Sarkozy plan, to which we are strongly
committed, the situation around the two republics will
finally be stabilized. It is important that this plan
should be strictly and unswervingly implemented by all
parties. We are concerned, however, by the attempts to
rewrite it after the fact.
I believe that everyone here has tired of playing
the role of extras for the Georgian regime, whose
words contain not a shred of truth and whose foreign
policy is aimed exclusively at provoking confrontation
throughout the world in the pursuit of their own
objectives which invariably run counter to the
objectives of the Georgian people and to the goal of
ensuring security in the Caucasus.
Today, it is necessary to analyse the crisis in the
Caucasus from the viewpoint of its impact on the
region and the international community as a whole.
The world has changed yet again. It has become
absolutely clear that the solidarity demonstrated after
9/11 must be revived through approaches untainted by
geopolitical expediency and built on the rejection of
double standards when fighting against any violations
or breaches of international law — whether on the part
of terrorists, political extremists or any others.
The crisis in the Caucasus has proved again that
it is impossible to resolve the problems we face when
blinded by the mirage of a unipolar world. The price
we will have to pay in terms of human lives and
destinies is too high. We cannot tolerate any attempts
to resolve conflict situations by violating international
agreements or by the unlawful use of force. If we allow
that to occur once, then we run the risk of unleashing it
in the future.
One cannot invoke the duty to defend in the
abstract, and then be outraged when that principle is
used in practice — and in strict conformity with Article
51 of the United Nations Charter and other norms of
international law. In South Ossetia, Russia defended
the highest of our common values, the most essential
human right: the right to live.
The existing security architecture in Europe did
not pass the test of recent events. Attempts to adjust it
to the rules of a unipolar world led to a situation where
that architecture proved incapable of containing an
aggressor or preventing the supply of offensive
weapons to it, contrary to all existing relevant codes of
conduct.
We propose that this issue should be addressed in
a comprehensive manner. President Dmitry
A. Medvedev, of Russia, speaking in Berlin on 5 June,
proposed an initiative on developing a Euro-Atlantic
security treaty, a type of “Helsinki II”. This work could
have been started at the Pan-European summit with the
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participation of all States as well as all organizations
working in the region.
The treaty which we are proposing is meant to
create a reliable collective security system that would
ensure equal security for all States and set out, in
legally binding form, the bases of relations among all
participants, with a view to strengthening peace,
ensuring stability and promoting integrated and
manageable development efforts across the vast Euro-
Atlantic region. This would be a process in which all
parties would reaffirm their commitment to
fundamental principles of international law, such as the
non-use of force; peaceful settlement of disputes;
sovereignty; territorial integrity; non-interference in
internal affairs; and the inadmissibility of
strengthening one’s own security by infringing upon or
endangering the security of others. We also need to
consider together new mechanisms to ensure
compliance with those fundamental principles.
Naturally, such a treaty should organically fit into the
legal framework of the United Nations Charter and its
principles of collective security.
The cold war distorted the nature of international
relations and turned them into an arena for ideological
confrontation. Only now, after the cold war has ended,
can the United Nations, created on the basis of a
polycentric vision of the world, fully realize its
potential. Today as never before, it is important that all
States reaffirm their commitment to the United Nations
as a global forum, to which there is no alternative and
which possesses a universal mandate and generally
recognized legitimacy, and as a centre for open, candid
and frank debate and coordination of world policies on
a just and equitable basis free from double standards.
This is an essential requirement to ensure that the
world regains its equilibrium.
The multitude of challenges that humanity is
facing require comprehensive strengthening of the
United Nations. In order to keep up with the times, the
United Nations requires further rational reform to be
able to gradually adapt itself to existing political and
economic realities. On the whole, we are satisfied by
the progress of the reform, including the initial results
of the activities of the recently established
Peacebuilding Commission and the Human Rights
Council.
With regard to expansion of the membership of
the Security Council, we will, of course, welcome
proposals that do not divide United Nations Member
States but rather facilitate the search for mutually
acceptable compromises and lead to a broad-based
agreement.
Of increasing importance in the reform process is
the promotion of dialogue and partnership among
civilizations. Russia supports the Alliance of
Civilizations and other initiatives in that regard. We
reiterate our proposal that a consultative council of
religions be established under United Nations auspices,
taking into account the increasing role of the religious
aspect in international life. That would assist in
strengthening moral principles and incorporating them
into international affairs.
Among the priorities of United Nations activities,
a number of urgent issues have recently appeared on
the Organization’s agenda, including climate change
and food and energy security. Those problems are
global and interrelated, and they can be addressed and
resolved only through a global partnership at a
qualitatively new level, with active involvement by
Governments, the scientific and business communities
and civil society.
In particular, the current financial crisis requires
urgent attention and synergy of efforts. From this
rostrum, the President of France has put forward
important initiatives aimed at a cooperative search for
ways to revitalize the international financial system
that involve the world’s leading economies. In that
context, we support the further development of
partnerships between the members of the Group of
Eight and key States in all developing regions. The
Economic and Social Council could also play a role
here. Russia will continue to participate responsibly in
the work of various bodies of the United Nations
system and in other contexts to help find an equitable
solution to all those problems.
The international development assistance
mechanisms being established in Russia will help us to
increase the extent and effectiveness of our
participation in international efforts to fight hunger and
disease, to promote broader access to education and to
overcome energy shortages, which will be our
additional contribution to the achievement of the
Millennium Development Goals. It is only natural that,
in so doing, we should pay particular attention to
assisting nearby countries. All countries have partners
with which they share traditional friendly relations
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based on a common history and geography. It is wrong
to artificially undermine such relationships for the
benefit of geopolitical schemes and against the will of
the people.
We will continue to work together with all our
neighbours. First and foremost, along with the other
countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States,
we will continue to develop the integration processes
within the Collective Security Treaty Organization and
the Eurasian Economic Community in order to
preserve and promote our common heritage of culture
and civilization, which, in a globalizing world, is a
major resource of the Commonwealth and of each of its
member States. That is why we have a particular
interest in cooperating with those countries, and it is
also why they view Russia as an area of special
interest. We will therefore base our relations on the
principles of equality, mutual benefit, respect for and
consideration of one another’s interests and compliance
with existing agreements, in particular those on the
peaceful settlement of disputes. That is also the way in
which we intend to develop our relations in other
regions of the world: openly, on the basis of
international law and without any zero-sum games.
Those principles were set out in the foreign policy
concept approved by President Medvedev in July this
year.
Russia is consistently implementing its network
diplomacy and promoting cooperation in various
formats: the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the
BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China —
partnership mechanisms with the European Union, the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the
Organization of the Islamic Conference, the League of
Arab States and regional organizations in Latin
America.
The developments that occurred in August gave
us yet another occasion to think about the
responsibility to report events accurately. Distortions
of reality hamper international efforts to settle conflicts
and crises and revive the worst practices of the cold-
war era. If we wish to prevent the truth from becoming
the first casualty of war, we must draw the appropriate
conclusions, in particular in the light of a provision of
the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International
Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation
among States in accordance with the Charter of the
United Nations, which states that States have the duty
to refrain from propaganda for wars of aggression.
That is in line with the Guidelines on protecting
freedom of expression and information in times of
crisis, recently adopted by the Committee of Ministers
of the Council of Europe. I propose that the United
Nations also issue a statement on that issue, this time
in a universal context.
The obvious global effects of the crisis in the
Caucasus show that the world has changed for
everyone. There are now fewer illusions and fewer
pretexts for refusing to respond to the most urgent
challenges of modern times. That is precisely why we
hope that the international community will, on the
basis of common sense, finally manage to develop a
programme of collective action for the twenty-first
century.