Scale of West's anti-Russian campaign unprecedented - Chizhov
BRUSSELS. Nov 30 (Interfax) - In today's world, Russia is one of the few states that can pursue an independent foreign-policy course, defending the priority of international law and the need to respect the central role of the United Nations, said Vladimir Chizhov, Russia's Special Representative to the European Union.
"As President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin stressed on several occasions, our colleagues' actions notwithstanding, we will never go down the path of self-isolation and searching for enemies, we will also be ready for cooperation with everyone who responds to us with reciprocation and really builds relations based on equality and mutual respect," he said at a ninth European Russian forum in Brussels on Monday.
"A clear hindrance of the development of our cooperation with the European Union is so-called sanctions, or more precisely, the unilateral restrictive measures introduced by the EU against Russia," Chizhov said.
"Today their inefficiency and contrived nature are becoming ever clearer. Those who favored their introduction never found time to explain what their purpose was, apart from reiterating the U.S. cliche of raising the price for Russia of its policy on the Ukrainian track. We never raise this subject with the EU, nor ask, let alone beg, them to lift the sanctions. We believe that the main damage from the sanctions is caused to the climate of confidence and the economy, not just Russia's, but of the EU countries' as well," the high-ranking Russian diplomat said.
"However, despite the negative backdrop in our relations, political dialogue with the EU continues. We believe that the main thing in the current situation is not to shut off from one another but to jointly work to rectify the situation, guided primarily by a strategic vision of the common priorities of Russia and the EU," he said.
An important date was marked in May 2015, which reminded the whole world how the anti-Hitler coalition countries 70 years ago found strength to overcome their ideological differences and united in the face of a common threat and jointly defeated fascism, Chizhov said.
"Today the world faces a new, no less merciless enemy, international terrorism that recognizes no borders. The only way to defeat it is by joining our efforts as part of a broad anti-terrorist coalition based on the principles of respect for international law and the UN Charter. It is Russia that has tirelessly been proposing it to its partners. The freezing of cooperation in this sphere, under whatever pretext, and any sort of hurdles are playing into the hands of international terrorism which is threatening the human civilization," the Russian diplomat said.