Sergei Lavrov Quotes

Every government is in some respects a problem for every other government.

Multilateralism may be little more than a polite way of camouflaging what is in practice unilateralism with allies.

There are nearly 200 countries and a population of over 6 billion in today's world. International affairs should be addressed by all countries through consultations rather than monopolised by a few powers.

Just as the United States doesn't like others to take charge, other countries also don't like the United States to play a dominant role in the United Nations.

All foreign policy is the intervention of one nation's domestic politics into another nation's domestic politics.

I should drag in the United States.

Is the balance of power a fixed and unalterable standard? Or is it not a standard perpetually varying, as civilization advances, and as new nations spring up, and take their place among established political communities?

Conquest or superiority among other powers is not or ought not ever to be the object of republican systems.

We have to really get used to the fact that there is more than one center in the world politics, that the unipolar world never succeeded, that there are more growing, emerging, economic, financial powers…

The situation that exists among nations in their relations to one another is such that it tempts even those who ordinarily come far short of cynicism to say that there is no connection between ethics and international relations.

We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with the other nations of the earth.

The U. S. is not the Boss, not the Boss any longer.

A new multipolar world has brought more uncertainty into international affairs.

Americans might not want to intervene in the outside world, but the outside world will still want to intervene in America.

I'm in favour of a multi-polar world. I believe that every country has the right to defend its own interests.

The notion that the U.S. can impose its will unilaterally on the World Bank reflects a fundamental misunderstanding about how multilateral organizations should work.

Like other countries in the world, China must uphold its own sovereignty, territorial integrity and development interests. At the same time, we are willing to properly handle differences and disagreements in state-to-state relations.

The statesmen still say that we should not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations and yet it is not possible any longer not to interfere, even when we do not mean to do so.

We should force European governments to choose between Paris and Washington.

Well, I think the United States first of all has to recognize the world for what it is.

This is the devilish thing about foreign affairs: they are foreign and will not always conform to our whim.

In international relations, in foreign policy, a great deal has to do with historical circumstances, a great deal has to do with the sense and perception of people.

Multi- polarisation has become an inevitable trend in the process of shaping a global political pattern and has been widely welcomed by the international community as it reflects the common interests and aspiration of the overwhelming majority of countries.

Foreign policy is an explicitly amoral enterprise.

We shouldn't discuss the world of tomorrow in terms of becoming a balance to the United States. The real issue is whether the United States will define herself as part of the U.N. system-or not.