Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russian Federat : Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks and answers to media questions at a news conference following talks with Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of South Sudan Awut Deng Acuil, Moscow, January 28, 2020

Ladies and gentlemen,

We have had very good talks with Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of South Sudan Awut Deng Acuil.

We met in Sochi last October, on the sidelines of the Russia-Africa Summit, held a bilateral meeting and signed a memorandum on consultations between our two countries' foreign ministries.

Today we have discussed the prospects of bilateral cooperation, first of all with an emphasis on the development of its economic element. We have spoken about the prospects in energy, transport, infrastructure development and personnel training. Our South Sudanese friends showed their interest in establishing contacts in all these areas. The first contacts between our countries' companies took place during the Russian Energy Week and the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, among other events. Based on those contacts, we came to share the opinion that it is necessary to expand them. We informed our colleagues about the Russian companies working in the oil and gas, infrastructure, railway and transport sectors that are ready to discuss possible mutually beneficial projects with our South Sudanese partners. We have agreed to promote direct contacts between our economic operators. We have also discussed ways of increasing the number of South Sudanese students at Russian universities. We can see our friends' interest in this area of cooperation as well. We have been reassured that Russian companies that will go to South Sudan will find themselves in a comfortable work environment, including security and conditions on which they will negotiate with their partners. Back in 2016, we signed the Intergovernmental Agreement on Military Technical Cooperation, which is still effective. We have agreed to use this sphere of cooperation in order to strengthen security and military capability of South Sudan, of course only after the UN Security Council lifts its the restrictions on weapons trade with that country.

We have noted that the situation normalised in South Sudan thanks to the government's policy to implement its agreements with the opposition, including the armed opposition. We believe that the UN Security Council should take this reality into account in its assessments and resolutions. The more active the normalisation is and the more sustainable these trends become, the more opportunities there will be to develop trade, economic, cultural and other cooperation. We welcomed the efforts of the international community and regional organisations that help promote the normalisation of the domestic political situation in South Sudan and stressed how important it was to implement the agreement signed by all South Sudanese parties in Addis Ababa back in 2018.

With regard to other issues on the international and regional agenda, we emphasised our readiness to further cooperate at the United Nations. We have the same approaches to the need to comply with all the norms and principles of the UN Charter, respecting sovereignty, independence and equality of all the UN member countries, resolving all problems exclusively by peaceful means and the unacceptability of the threat of force or use of force in violation of the UN Charter. We will coordinate our approaches to the issues on the UN agenda.

We have thanked our friends for their continued support of Russia's main initiatives at the UN, including the new initiative first submitted for consideration to the UN General Assembly last autumn. I mean the resolution on strengthening and developing the system of agreements on arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation. This topic is crucial in the situation when the United States is trying to pull down this system and destroy the remaining multilateral tools that served as the base for the efforts to ensure strategic stability.

With regard to the African agenda, we have also reaffirmed our position of support for the Africans' efforts to resolve their own problems. We share the view of the processes underway in Somalia, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the entire Africa's Great Lakes region. As a member of the UN Security Council, Russia will insist on respecting, first of all, the approaches developed by the African Union and sub-regional African organisations when discussing these and other conflicts in Africa.

We have also reaffirmed our readiness to promote the normalisation between South Sudan and Sudan. There are still issues to be addressed after these countries' 'divorce.' We support the countries' search for mutually acceptable solutions that take into account the balance of interests.

We are very satisfied with the outcome of the talks, which will probable give a new boost to the development of our relations with this young African country.

To be continued...