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Russia's Lavrov: West to Blame for World Turmoil

FILE PHOTO: Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a meeting with India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Moscow, Russia December 27, 2023. Alexander Nemenov/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a meeting with India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Moscow, Russia December 27, 2023. Alexander Nemenov/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
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Russia's Lavrov: West to Blame for World Turmoil

FILE PHOTO: Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a meeting with India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Moscow, Russia December 27, 2023. Alexander Nemenov/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attends a meeting with India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Moscow, Russia December 27, 2023. Alexander Nemenov/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

The intrigues of Western countries whose dominance is ebbing away are largely responsible for pitching the world into turmoil, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview published on Thursday.
Lavrov, in a year-end interview released by the official Tass news agency, warned that no one world-wide could be certain of escaping unscathed from Western machinations in 2024.
"Storms continue in the world and one of the reasons is that the ruling circles in the West provoke crises thousands of kilometers from their borders in order to resolve their own issues at the expense of other peoples," Tass quoted Lavrov as saying in extracts released ahead of full publication.
"It can be said that given conditions in which the West is clinging to the domination slipping away from it, no one can be protected against its geopolitical intrigues. There is a growing understanding of this."

Russia describes its war in Ukraine as an existential struggle against the "collective West" resolved to expand the reach of NATO and inflict a "strategic defeat" on Moscow.
It also says the outbreak of conflict in the Middle East is a result of the longstanding failures of US foreign policy and called for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
In his comments to Tass, Lavrov called for de-escalation of the Middle East conflict, denouncing as "unacceptable" both acts of terror and "collective punishment".
"It is vital to break the vicious cycle of violence and do away with the injustice from which several generations of Palestinians have suffered," Reuters quoted him as saying.
"Only by doing this can stability be achieved in the zone of confrontation in the Middle East as a whole."
Lavrov also restated Russia's complaint that Ukraine was unwilling to hold peace talks to end the 22-month-old conflict in Ukraine, which Moscow calls a "special military operation".
"I must note an absence of any will for peace on the part of the regime of (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelenskiy," Lavrov told Tass.
"His representatives think only in categories of war and resort to totally aggressive rhetoric. There is no consideration of holding peace talks ... Draw your own conclusions."

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Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso Rule Out Returning to the ECOWAS Regional Bloc

Head of the military junta in Niger Abdourahamane Tchiani (L) and Interim leader of Burkina Faso Captain Ibrahim Traore (R) salute at the first ever Alliance of Sahel States summit in Niamey, Niger, 06 July 2024. EPA/ISSIFOU DJIBO
Head of the military junta in Niger Abdourahamane Tchiani (L) and Interim leader of Burkina Faso Captain Ibrahim Traore (R) salute at the first ever Alliance of Sahel States summit in Niamey, Niger, 06 July 2024. EPA/ISSIFOU DJIBO
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Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso Rule Out Returning to the ECOWAS Regional Bloc

Head of the military junta in Niger Abdourahamane Tchiani (L) and Interim leader of Burkina Faso Captain Ibrahim Traore (R) salute at the first ever Alliance of Sahel States summit in Niamey, Niger, 06 July 2024. EPA/ISSIFOU DJIBO
Head of the military junta in Niger Abdourahamane Tchiani (L) and Interim leader of Burkina Faso Captain Ibrahim Traore (R) salute at the first ever Alliance of Sahel States summit in Niamey, Niger, 06 July 2024. EPA/ISSIFOU DJIBO

Military junta leaders of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso on Saturday ruled out returning their nations to the West Africa regional bloc whose division could further jeopardize efforts to undo coups and curb violence spreading across the region.
The leaders of the three countries announced that position during their first summit in Niamey, the capital of Niger, after their withdrawal from the West Africa bloc known as ECOWAS in January, The Associated Press said.
They also accused the bloc of failing its mandate and pledged to consolidate their own union — the Alliance of Sahel States — created last year amid fractured relations with neighbors.
The nearly 50-year-old ECOWAS has become “a threat to our states,” said Niger’s military leader, Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani.
"We are going to create an AES of the peoples, instead of an ECOWAS whose directives and instructions are dictated to it by powers that are foreign to Africa,” he said.
The meeting of the three countries that border one another came a day before an ECOWAS summit being held in Nigeria by other heads of state in the region.
Analysts said the two meetings show the deep division in ECOWAS, which had emerged as the top political authority for its 15 member states before the unprecedented decision of the three countries to withdraw their membership.
Despite efforts by ECOWAS to keep its house united, the alliance between the three military junta-led countries will most likely remain outside the regional bloc as tensions continue to grow, said Karim Manuel, an analyst for the Middle East and Africa with the Economist Intelligence Unit.
“Attempts at mediation will likely continue nonetheless, notably led by Senegal’s new administration, but it will not be fruitful anytime soon,” said Manuel.
Formed last September, the Alliance of Sahel States has been touted by the three junta-led countries as a tool to seek new partnerships with countries like Russia and cement their independence from former colonial ruler France , which they accuse of interfering with ECOWAS.
At the meeting in Niamey, Burkina Faso's leader, Capt. Ibrahim Traoré, reaffirmed those concerns and accused foreign countries of exploiting Africa.
“Westerners consider that we belong to them and our wealth also belongs to them. They think that they are the ones who must continue to tell us what is good for our states. This era is gone forever; our resources will remain for us and our populations,” Traoré said.
“The attack on one of us will be an attack on all the other members,” said Mali’s leader, Col. Assimi Goïta.
With Goïta elected as the new alliance's leader, the three leaders signed a pact in committing their countries to creating a regional parliament and a bank similar to those operated by ECOWAS. They also committed to pooling their military resources to fight insecurity in their countries.
At a meeting of regional ministers on Thursday, Omar Alieu Touray, the president of the ECOWAS Commission, said it had not received "the right signals” about any possible return of the three states despite ECOWAS lifting coup-related sanctions that the three nations blamed for their decision to quit the bloc.
It is not only the three countries that are angry at ECOWAS, observers say. The bloc has lost goodwill and support from West African citizens so much that some celebrated the recent spate of coups in the region where citizens have complained of not benefitting from rich natural resources in their countries.
For the most part, ECOWAS is seen as representing only the interests of its members' leaders and not that of the masses, said Oge Onubogu, director of the Africa Program at the Washington-based Wilson Center think tank.