Russia Spells Out Foreign Policy Priorities, Says Western Dominance Declining

World Map Showing Continents, Greens, Browns, Ice

(RIA Novosti – Moscow, 18 February 2013) The West’s capabilities to dominate global politics continue to dwindle, the Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, whose text was posted on the website of the Foreign Ministry today, reads. [http://www.mid.ru/bdomp/ns-osndoc.nsf/e2f289bea62097f9c325787a0034c255/c32577ca0017434944257b160051bf7f]

“The capabilities of the historically established West to dominate the global economy and politics continue to decline. The global potential of strength and growth is dispersing and shifting eastwards, particularly towards the Asia Pacific region,” the document says.

It adds that, considering the above, Russia is attaching particular significance to the development of relations with China and India.

“Russia deems it important to further develop the mechanism of effective and mutually beneficial foreign policy and economic cooperation in the format Russia-India-China,” the concept reads.

It, however, says that Russia finds it quite important to develop relations with the EU. In particular, Moscow views as vital the lifting of EU visa requirements and development of economic cooperation.

The documents also says that Russia will develop relations with the USA, taking into consideration “vast potential for the development of mutually beneficial trade and investment, scientific-technical and other kinds of cooperation, as well as the special responsibility of both states for global strategic stability”.

The concept stresses that Moscow “will be working actively to prevent the USA from introducing unilateral extraterritorial sanctions against Russian companies and individuals” and also to facilitate the liberalization of visa procedures for citizens of both countries.

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