Russia’s top diplomat says the West is searching for ways to anger China on a host of issues, including Taiwan and Tibet.
Russia’s relations with the West “will never be the same”, he said, as he accused the West of failing to observe signed agreements with Moscow. “Never again there will be a situation when you lie, sign documents and then refuse to fulfil them,” he said.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/18/lavrov-hails-moscow-beijing-ties-accuses-us-of-provocations
Jan 18, 2023
![Lavrov](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/AP22208403219846.jpg?resize=770%2C513&quality=80)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has hailed joint military drills between Moscow and Beijing as a move that strengthens the pair’s new strategic partnership.
Addressing reporters in Moscow on Wednesday, Lavrov also accused the West of searching for ways to anger China on a host of issues, such as the status of Tibet and Taiwan.
Russia’s relations with the West “will never be the same”, he said, as he accused the West of failing to observe signed agreements with Moscow.
“Never again there will be a situation when you lie, sign documents and then refuse to fulfil them,” he said.
Last month, the Chinese and Russian navies held joint drills in the East China Sea.
According to China’s Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army, the exercises were designed to demonstrate “the determination and capability of the two sides to jointly respond to maritime security threats”.
Meanwhile, Russia and China are also said to be “sharing a toolkit” of approaches and strategies to undermine NATO, according to Julianne Smith, US ambassador to NATO.
“Those two are increasingly sharing a toolkit that should concern the NATO alliance, Smith told the Financial Times in an article published in December.
“There’s just no question that the [People’s Republic of China] and Russia are both working to divide … the transatlantic partners. And we are now very aware, we all have a deeper appreciation of those efforts and are intent on addressing them,” Smith said in an interview.
NATO in June listed China among its strategic challenges for the first time, saying Beijing’s ambitions and “coercive policies” undermined the Western military bloc’s “interests, security and values”.
Lavrov compares West’s approach to Hitler’s ‘final solution’
Elsewhere in his speech on Wednesday, Lavrov said the US had assembled a coalition of European countries to solve “the Russian question” using Ukraine as a proxy, in the same way Adolf Hitler had sought a “final solution” to eradicate Europe’s Jews.
“Just as Hitler wanted a ‘final solution’ to the Jewish question, now, if you read Western politicians … they clearly say Russia must suffer a strategic defeat,” he said.
Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem, reporting from Moscow, said Lavrov’s news conference was an attempt to contextualize the war into the “Russian-Western confrontation”.
SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES