Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged Pompeo to refrain from returning to the imperious ‘Monroe Doctrine’ in its relations with Venezuela, and indicated that while the Russian and US positions on the crisis in the Latin American country remain incompatible, dialogue must continue.
“We agreed to maintain contacts, including on Venezuela, but I don’t see a way to reconcile our positions — ours, on the one hand, which is based on the UN Charter and the principles and norms of international law, and that of the United States, on the other, in which Washington assigns the acting president of another country,” Lavrov said, speaking to reporters in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on Thursday.
“Our positions are incompatible, but we are ready to talk,” Lavrov reiterated.
According to the foreign minister, during their conversation Wednesday, he told Pompeo that the Monroe Doctrine approach to US policy was a sign of disrespect to the people of Venezuela and Latin America as a whole.
Commenting on the possibility of a US military intervention of Venezuela, Lavrov said that Russia plans to create a bloc of countries to counter such plans, with this group consisting of countries “which, like Russia, respect the UN Charter.”
Lavrov also indicated that earlier claims by Secretary of State Pompeo about Maduro’s supposed plans to flee the country and Russia’s efforts to dissuade him from doing so were simply not true. “If one were to review everything that officials in the US administration say about Venezuela, endless questions will arise. And all of these questions, as a rule, have one and the same answer. Putting it diplomatically: this is not true,” Lavrov said.
Asked why Secretary of State Pompeo may have called him in the first place, Lavrov said that as he understood it, “he called so that he could later say publicly that he called me and urged Russia not to interfere. Well, he did so.” At the same time, Lavrov indicated that Russia does not interfere in Venezuela’s internal affairs, calling Pompeo’s allegations to that effect “rather surreal.”
“I told him that based on our principled position, we never interfere in the affairs of others, and urge others to do the same,” Lavrov said.