MOSCOW, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) — Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has criticized expansionism of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its try to increase footprints to the complete Eastern Hemisphere.
In an article revealed on the official web site of the Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, Lavrov warned that NATO is undermining the prevailing regional structure across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and creating a brand new hotspot of geopolitical stress within the Asia-Pacific area.
Washington is forming military-political mini-alliances beneath its management, similar to AUKUS (Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States), the trio of the United States, Japan and South Korea, in addition to the quartet of Tokyo, Seoul, Canberra and Wellington, and involving them in sensible cooperation with NATO, which is deploying its infrastructure within the Pacific area, Lavrov stated.
These efforts pose a menace to the inclusive, consensus-based regional structure round ASEAN, Lavrov stated within the article titled “Observance of the principles of the UN Charter in their entirety and interrelation — a guarantee of international peace and stability.”