Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov believes that the Ukrainian crisis has the same background as the events in Iraq and Libya.
“What we see at the forefront today is the crises that were created
by similar methods and appeared as a result of policies aimed at
changing the regimes in North Africa and the Middle East – Iraq and
Libya. And [the crisis] in Ukraine was motivated by the same causes,”
Lavrov said at a meeting with Slovenian Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec.
“It is imperative for all sides to stop violence and seriously engage
in dialogue without preconditions,” the Russian minister said.
Lavrov said that he and Erjavec are going to discuss both the
situation in Ukraine, relations between Russia and the European Union,
“as well as the work, to be precise its absence, within the Russia-NATO
Council.”
The Russian foreign minister said he intends to visit Slovenia in July.
“Hopefully, in July I will attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the
Memorial Museum near the city of Maribor, where scores of citizens of
our country were killed,” Lavrov said.
Erjavec, for his part, praised the functioning of the
Russian-Slovenian intergovernmental commission, which is expected to
hold its next meeting before the end of the year.
“Bilateral trade between our countries stood at $2 billion,” the minister said.
Slovenia is highly optimistic over the recent presidential elections
in Ukraine and hopes that dialogue within this country will be launched
as soon as possible, Erjavec said.
