MADRID, Spain.- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov plans to begin a diplomatic tour of Latin America next week, with destinations including Cuba, Venezuela and Brazil. This will be the owner’s second visit to the Island in less than a year.
The announcement was made by the spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, María Zajárova, who specified that Lavrov will arrive in Cuba on February 19. During his stay, a meeting is scheduled with President Miguel Díaz-Canel and the Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodríguez. It is expected that during these meetings “current issues of bilateral cooperation, the global and regional agenda” will be discussed, said María Zajárova, quoted by Latin Press.
“The parties will also consider cooperation to prevent the undermining of the universally recognized principles and norms of international law and the UN Charter, to counteract neocolonial practices and illegitimate unilateral restrictive measures in state relations,” adds the official media.
This visit takes place in the context of the pending invitation to Havana from the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
Lavrov’s agenda also includes meetings in Venezuela and Brazil, which shows the strategic importance that Russia gives to the Latin American region in its foreign policy.
Last April, Sergei Lavrov traveled to Havana, where he met with Raúl Castro and Miguel Díaz-Canel. On the island, the last stop on a tour of Latin America that also took him to Brazil, Venezuela and Nicaragua, he thanked the Cuban regime for its “full understanding” of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“We appreciate that from the very beginning of the special military operation our Cuban friends (…) have clearly expressed their position and expressed their full understanding in their assessments of the reasons that led to the current situation,” Lavrov said during a meeting with Bruno Rodríguez , according to a message from the Russian Foreign Ministry.
Lavrov has served as Foreign Minister for nineteen years under the alternating mandates of Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev. His diplomatic career took him to Sri Lanka as an ambassador in the 1970s and to the United Nations as an advisor to the Soviet mission.
There are opposite criteria regarding its performance. Several experts describe him as a brilliant diplomat and an inflexible negotiator. Other analysts define him as complicit in the Kremlin’s violent foreign policy. In 2012, during the war in Syria, Lavrov was one of the officials chosen to lead the Russian delegation that traveled to that Middle Eastern nation to show support for Bashar al-Assad.
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2024-02-16 19:46:35
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