Post #2315

🎙Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement at a joint press conference with Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Emigration and Egyptian Expatriates Badr Abdelatty following the Second Ministerial Conference of the #RussiaAfrica Partnership Forum (Cairo, December 20, 2025) Read in full 💬Sergey Lavrov: We conducted a thorough discussion of the full Russian-African agenda. Our focus was in particular on reviewing the implementation of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum Action Plan for 2023-2026 and on identifying further steps to expand our trade, economic, and investment cooperation – a partnership that is growing rapidly and which we are committed to strengthening. We have agreed to create conditions that facilitate concrete steps to increase mutual trade and to implement promising joint investment projects in high-tech industries, all aspects of energy and other areas, including in cultural, humanitarian and educational spheres. All these areas of practical cooperation are detailed in the comprehensive Joint Statement, which was unanimously approved and which will serve as the central guideline for our future work. Importantly, this document places special emphasis, within the trade and economic sphere, on establishing resilient financial, logistical, and interbank mechanisms that will safeguard our partnership from illegal unilateral sanctions – a practice our joint statement clearly defines as unacceptable. The Joint Statement also captures the progress of our discussions on pressing international and regional issues, including those of global significance. We decided to continue coordinating our efforts in multilateral forums. This includes advancing the reform of the UN Security Council, taking full account of the legitimate interests of African states, and reforming the Bretton Woods institutions, whose composition and practices significantly lag behind today’s global economic realities. I would like to highlight the section of the Statement that outlines our shared fundamental approaches to key issues of international development. In particular, I note the clear position that all states must respect the principles of the UN Charter not selectively but in their entirety and interdependent integrity. Significant attention in the Statement is devoted to strengthening the independence of our African friends, particularly in the economic sphere. To protect their right to independent development, their right to choose their own partners and foreign policy priorities, the Statement proclaims our clear support for the recent UN General Assembly resolution establishing December 14 as the annual International Day Against Colonialism in All Its Forms and Manifestations. This will serve to intensify our shared efforts at the UN to eradicate contemporary forms of colonialism and neocolonial practices. Finally, our shared position on the urgent resolution of the Palestinian issue, in full compliance with existing UN resolutions, as my colleague detailed, is clearly enshrined in the Statement. The Joint Statement also contains our shared decision to strengthen cooperation in politics and security. It is one of the reasons why we have recommended establishing working relations between the African Union and the CSTO. The Forum programme offered a whole range of sideline events, including a business event involving representatives of economic and trade agencies and organisations from Russia and African countries. You certainly know that the Russian delegation had a great number of bilateral meetings – over 20 of them – with the ministers of our African partners. We benefited from useful discussions of bilateral relations and their development. In some cases, agreements and memorandums covering different areas were signed.