Hostilities in the two regions have different causes and contexts, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the XI International Scientific and Expert Forum «Primakov Readings» in Moscow. © Sputnik/Ilya Pitalev
It is wrong to compare Israel’s attack on Iran with the Ukraine conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said, maintaining that the nature and context of the two conflicts are different.
Speaking on Tuesday at the ‘Primakov Readings’ forum in Moscow, Lavrov said the conflict in the Middle East was triggered solely by Israel’s suspicion that Iran had violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which was not confirmed by inspections from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Israel attacked Iran on June 13, claiming that Tehran was on the brink of developing a nuclear bomb, despite the IAEA and US intelligence insisting there was no evidence of this. The Iranian authorities have maintained that that they are not working on a bomb, while defending their right to pursue a peaceful nuclear program.
In contrast, Lavrov said Ukraine had openly violated its commitments by moving NATO closer to Russia’s borders and creating threats to Russia’s security. Moscow’s position on NATO enlargement has been a central issue in its conflict with Ukraine, and Russian officials have repeatedly cited Western military support for Kiev as a destabilizing factor.
”The threat to our military security and the legal eradication of everything Russian – these are the root causes that we could not, cannot, and will not allow to persist,” Lavrov said. “That is why it is unfair to say that these conflicts are in any way similar,” he stressed.
The foreign minister also said that prior to 2022, the Ukrainian side continued to intensify its shelling of the Donbass and killing of civilians in violation of the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements.
”They prepared a plan to seize these territories by force in order to set up NATO bases in Crimea. The British had planned to build a base on the Sea of Azov – all of this is known,” Lavrov said.
“But there is not a single fact of Iran carrying out any hostile action against Israel,” the minister added.
He said that unlike in Ukraine, where the Russian language is being completely eradicated despite being one of the official languages of the United Nations, “no other country in the world bans a specific language.”
“By the way, Hebrew is not banned in Iran – there are synagogues there, Judaism is not prohibited. Likewise, Hebrew is allowed in the Palestinian territories,” Lavrov noted. “In Israel, Arabic is not banned either,” he added.