Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov gave an interview to the MIC Izvestia multimedia information centre in Vladivostok, Foreign Ministry’s website reported.
As Lavrov noted, “The World Trade Organization is going through serious trials, which reflect attempts to impose some new rules instead of the universally agreed upon standards. These attempts include illegitimate sanctions that run contrary to WTO commitments. As you know, the sanctions announced against Russia by the US, Europe, Japan and other Western countries do not fit into WTO principles. Trade wars, ongoing mutual tariff increases – this is a chain reaction that concerns not only the immediate parties to the conflict but also the rest of the world, because the world economy suffers from the trade war between the largest economies – the United States and China. We need to go back to the principles the WTO was founded on. These principles were a subject of many years of negotiation as to the conditions for each country to join the organization. This must be respected.”
“The WTO has a mechanism for dispute resolution. While being a leader in starting trade wars and imposing conditions favorable for itself on its partners, the United States still does not reject the need to invoke this mechanism for settling disputes. This gives some hope. However, the negotiating venues are in for a difficult struggle,” he said.