MOSCOW, 20 Jul. The scheme with the participation of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in top-level events has been used repeatedly, Russia itself decided to use it in the context of the upcoming BRICS summit in Johannesburg this year, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov said earlier that President Vladimir Putin decided to participate in the BRICS summit in the format of a video conference call — this will be a full-fledged participation, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will be present at the meeting itself.
«You know perfectly well that such a scheme has been used repeatedly, when, for example, the President made an appeal — in writing or video, and either the Minister of Foreign Affairs or a representative of another department was physically present at the summit. This is a scheme that is applicable to us more than once,» Zakharova said at a briefing.
«It is the country itself that determines who will represent the country. Neither newspapers, nor political scientists, nor anyone else. The country itself makes such a decision, and our country itself made such a decision. I do not know any additional information about the course of the discussions. Once again, I want to emphasize that such schemes for attending summits and participation were repeatedly and they were associated with a huge number of different reasons,» Zakharova stressed.
«In this sense, there is no need to look for any pitfalls, intrigues, and so on. I understand that there is a lot of food, at some point it all turns into hysteria in the media, but we need to bring ourselves back to reality, realizing that this is how Russia participates in many international formats,» she added.
According to her, such a scheme is used not only by Russia, but also by other countries. «We treat this with understanding and respect, it seems to me that we can also count on such an attitude towards our decisions,» the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs concluded.