🎙 Speech by S.V. Lavrov at a meeting with university graduates accepted for the first time into the diplomatic service ( Moscow, October 31, 2023 )
Main points
💬 Congratulations to everyone on joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs! We hold such events traditionally and annually. The majority (as usual) are graduates of MGIMO and the Diplomatic Academy – our subordinate institutions.
• I am sure that you are familiar with our assessments, which coincide with the vast majority of countries in the world. We call it the Global Majority. That’s eighty-five percent of the population.
🌍 We now have a large number of contacts with states of the Global South. These are the countries of #БРИКС , #ШОС , our closest allies and neighbors, Belarus (we are building a Union State with it), #ОДКБ , #СНГ and #ЕАЭС . Our relations with Africa are on the rise.
☝️ At the same time, we do not slam the door on the West. If and when they come to their senses, “sober up” from trying to revel in their own greatness, impunity and exclusivity, and if they turn to us, saying that in fact we need to take advantage of the fact that we are, by and large, neighbors, then we will think.
• We welcome the presence among you of people with knowledge of rare and oriental languages , which are now being actively taught. Their number is expanding at MGIMO: traditional Arabic, but also Dari, Azerbaijani, Hebrew, Chinese, Korean, Mongolian, Tajik, Turkish, Hindi.
• We must proceed from the fact that in the modern world a diplomat is a universal specialist who must have knowledge of languages and an understanding of the cultural and civilizational diversity of the world. In modern conditions, these are digital technologies, artificial intelligence and much more.
WtR