"It is alarming to hear the statements on the right to use military force to ensure one's own interests in the Middle East region under the pretext of the "remaining in demand for leadership" in the international affairs. All the recent history testifies that no State - no matter how big or powerful - can cope alone with the challenges of that scope faced by mankind today."

Sergey Lavrov, the Minister of
Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation

Said : Sergey Lavrov, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation at the 68th Session of the UN General Assembly on September 27, 2013.

Lavrov said that the pace of developments in today's world is very rapid and less predictable as a result of which the international relations have become more complex and multi -dimensional. UN - a truly universal organization - only has the power to undertake the urgent task to agree upon collective responses to the key issues of today's globalized world. 

Lavrov observed that certain sections of the world community has a tendency to believe that the collective actions are those which are in agreement with the viewpoint of one particular group of countries. This could happen in various areas "on issues of international security, settlement of the conflict situations, functioning of the world economy, the choice of the development models and core values."

Aiming to hint and hit at the US approach, Lavrov said : "Recently, a common argument has been increasingly used to prove that the threat or use of force, directly prohibited by the UN Charter, is nearly the most effective method to address international problems, including settlement of national domestic conflicts. There are attempts to extrapolate such an approach also to the situation in Syria. This happens despite the fact that all the experience of such interventions with the use of force in the recent years has proven that they are ineffective, meaningless and destructive." 

However, Lavrov added that solidarity efforts might be productive only if they reflect all the spectrum of views of the international community on the global challenges and threats, all historical experience and all cultural and civilization diversity of the modern world.

Lavrov cited his leader President Vladimir Putin's remark made in a recent article published in the New York Times : "we must stop using the language of force and return to the path of civilized diplomatic and political settlement."

Full text of the speech made by Sergey Lavrov, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, is available here.