Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s meeting with Minister of State, Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Integration and Chadians Abroad of the Republic of Chad Abdoulaye Sabre Fadoul

Photo: MFA

Press release on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s meeting with Minister of State, Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Integration and Chadians Abroad of the Republic of Chad Abdoulaye Sabre Fadoul.

On July 14, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held talks with Abdoulaye Sabre Fadoul, Chad’s Minister of State and Minister for Foreign Affairs, African Integration and Chadians Abroad, who is in Moscow on a working visit.

The conversation covered a range of issues relating to the further strengthening of traditionally friendly Russian-Chadian relations. Both Moscow and N'Djamena reaffirmed their commitment to deepen trusting political dialogue and enhance coordination within the UN and other multilateral platforms.

Considerable attention was given to expanding trade, economic and investment ties, improving the bilateral legal framework, and advancing promising joint projects in areas such as geological exploration, mining, energy, agriculture and healthcare. The parties also identified avenues for closer cooperation in the humanitarian sphere and other fields.

In an exchange of views on key global and African agenda items with a particular focus on UN Security Council reform, the situations in Ukraine and the Middle East, and developments in the Sahara-Sahel region, Russia and Chad were found to hold closely aligned positions. Both countries expressed a shared commitment to fostering a more equitable, multipolar world order rooted in international law and in strengthening the UN’s central role. They also voiced a common view in favour of political and diplomatic solutions to crises in Africa, with African-led efforts and support from the wider international community.

Much of the discussion was devoted to advancing multifaceted Russian-African cooperation in the run-up to the third Russia-Africa Summit, due to take place in Moscow in October this year. The Chadian delegation’s participation in this important forum was also warmly welcomed.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement and answers to media questions at a joint news conference following talks with Minister of State, Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Integration and Chadians Abroad of the Republic of Chad Abdoulaye Sabre Fadoul.

Ladies and gentlemen,

My counterpart from the Republic of Chad, Abdoulaye Sabre Fadoul, and I have held substantive and productive talks.

We reaffirmed the shared commitment of Moscow and N’Djamena to strengthening the traditionally friendly bilateral relations, which have relied on trust and mutual respect from the very beginning. For our part, we welcomed the policy pursued by the Chadian leadership, and personally by President Mahamat Idriss Déby, aimed at further strengthening bilateral relations.

We discussed key bilateral issues focusing on trade, the economy, and investment which would benefit greatly from our effort to improve them, as they still lag significantly behind the high level of our friendly political dialogue and humanitarian cooperation.

We specified the areas which Russian and Chadian companies could focus on in order to boost cooperation. Particular attention was given to geological prospecting, the energy sector, fertiliser production, and healthcare. We have an impressive track record in the healthcare sector, which is not limited to Chad but includes many neighbouring countries as well. Prospects are good, and we are optimistic about our ability to turn these opportunities into viable practical outcomes.

We highly praised the level of cooperation in the humanitarian sphere, particularly education. More than 3,500 Chadian citizens have received professional training in Russia. We provide 300 publicly funded scholarships each year, which places Chad among the leading countries in sub-Saharan Africa in terms of this indicator. Next academic year, we plan to increase the number of scholarships to 360.

We covered extensively current regional and global issues stating that our positions are fully aligned when it comes to strategic matters at the centre of the debate on the future of the international system.

Our approaches to the bulk of the specific proposals currently under review at the UN to enhance its effectiveness, as well as on how to address the conflicts that continue to affect Africa coincide as well. In particular, we discussed the situation in the Sahara-Sahel region, including the activities of the Confederation of Sahel States, which comprises Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger.

Not long ago, we held the third ministerial meeting with the participation of the three member states of the Confederation and the Russian Federation in Niamey, the capital of Niger. We shared the outcomes of the discussions and the plans that we worked on during the meeting.

We expressed serious concern over the growing terrorist threat and the spread of the activities of Islamist groups affiliated with ISIS and Boko Haram across countries of the region with the evident backing of certain former colonial powers, which continue to seek to undermine relations between the Russian Federation and the Sahara-Sahel countries. In carrying out these provocations, they are making use not only of terrorist groups but of militants from Ukraine as well.

We agreed that crises and conflicts on the African continent must be resolved on the basis of the “African solutions to African problems” principle that we consistently uphold. We continue to see numerous attempts to impose externally designed solutions on the situations in Sudan and Libya that do not reflect the imperative of achieving national reconciliation in each of those countries.

Russia stands firmly for the Africans to come to terms among themselves, with external actors merely facilitating the process by providing financial support for peacekeeping initiatives or encouraging the African countries to reach agreements among themselves.

As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Russia will continue to advocate this particular approach and focus on the efforts aimed at stabilising the situation in the Sahara-Sahel region. We will continue assisting the countries of the region on a bilateral basis, including by enhancing the capabilities of their national armed forces and providing training for military and law enforcement personnel. We will continue to provide humanitarian aid as well.

We highly appreciate the firm resolve of the Chadian leadership to seeing the countries of the Confederation of Sahel States achieve normalised relations with the Economic Community of West African States and the African Union. We fully share and support this course of action.

We expressed gratitude to our Chadian friends for closely cooperating with us at the UN, including the support they provide to Russia’s resolutions on combatting the glorification of Nazism, strengthening confidence-building measures in outer space activities, and preventing the militarisation of outer space. We exchanged opinions on the forthcoming election of the UN Secretary-General.

We shared with our colleagues our assessment of the latest developments surrounding the Ukraine crisis, including the latest instances of political manoeuvring by the Europeans as they seek to undermine the understandings between the Russian Federation and the United States. However, President Putin has repeatedly pointed out that, should those understandings fail to be implemented, we know how to achieve the objectives he clearly set out in his address here at the Foreign Ministry in June 2024.

It goes without saying that we also discussed preparations for the Third Russia-Africa Summit in Moscow in October. We are grateful for letting us know that President of the Republic of Chad Mahamat Idriss Déby plans to attend. We look forward to an opportunity for holding a top-level meeting and assessing the progress made in the areas we discussed today for which we have outlined practical follow-up steps.

I believe we had a productive discussion.

Question: Wheat prices have spiked following a series of Ukrainian attacks on Russian vessels in the Sea of Azov. Could this situation affect Russia’s African partners, and what can Moscow do to help them given the circumstances?

Sergey Lavrov: Moscow - and the President in particular - is working to put an end to all of this. What the Ukrainian regime is doing goes beyond piracy. At least pirates plunder for their own gain. Here, however, it benefits no one. The sole purpose is simply to cause damage and spread fear. It’s pure terrorism which manifests itself not only in the Sea of Azov but also in the Black Sea and Africa. Wherever the Ukrainians see an opportunity to damage what they perceive to be the interests of the Russian Federation, they will align themselves with anyone, including African extremists seeking to bring down legitimate governments, or any other dregs of society.

In any event, we will continue to fulfil all our commitments regarding food supplies to our African friends, both under commercial contracts and as part of humanitarian efforts, in accordance with their requests, just as we have done before and continue to do now.

Here’s an example that makes it vivid. When the special military operation began, 200,000 tonnes of Russian wheat were seized at EU ports. The President and the Russian corporate owners of that wheat announced that we would give it free of charge to African countries in need. Yet the European Union, with its vaunted commitment to human rights, prevented that wheat from being released and delivered to those countries for more than a year.

So we know these neighbours well. We know their ways and how determined they are to thwart Russia’s cooperation with African countries. Ultimately, they want to restore the old order when former colonial powers ran the show there.

I mentioned earlier that such terrorist attacks are taking place not only in the Sea of Azov but in the Black Sea as well. Yesterday, Turkish media reported a new series of fairly serious attacks by Ukrainian unmanned surface vessels against Turkish ships, including tankers and other vessels transporting Turkish cargo. This is by far not the first such incident, not to mention that the infrastructure of the Blue Stream gas pipeline, which transports natural gas to Türkiye, is regularly targeted in terrorist attacks.

We have asked our Turkish colleagues how they plan to respond. We hope they will publicly assess these incidents and send a firm and unequivocal message to the terrorist Kiev regime.

Question (retranslated from French): What role does Russia play in regional security in Africa? How is Moscow contributing to the fight against armed groups and cross-border terrorism in Africa?

Sergey Lavrov (speaking after A.S. Fadoul): With regard to combatting terrorism, we engage in an uncompromising fight on multiple fronts and provide every possible form of assistance to our African friends. The Russian Defence Ministry’s African Corps is operating in Niger, Mali, and other countries in that region. Representatives of those countries told us during our recent African tour that, with its assistance, the armed forces of Mali and Niger succeeded in repelling major terrorist attacks.

This cooperation will continue, no doubt about it. Its high importance will be further reaffirmed at the Third Russia-Africa Summit in Moscow in October.

Question (retranslated from French): What role can Chad play in reforming the UN Security Council? More broadly, what position does Chad take within the UN?

Sergey Lavrov: As for the Security Council reform, there will be no reform without addressing Africa’s legitimate interests.

Question: What is Russia’s take on the United States violating the provisions of the memorandum of understanding with Iran and resuming hostilities? Can this call into question future guarantees that the United States may offer as part of a settlement of the Ukraine conflict?

Sergey Lavrov: I cannot speculate about the future. I will speak only about the facts. The United States and Iran signed a memorandum whose first clause mentioned Lebanon three times.

Everyone hoped that the memorandum would be acted upon. President Putin has repeatedly stated that we support this arrangement and look forward to it being carried out. Israel publicly stated that it was not a party to this arrangement and therefore considered itself entitled to act in Lebanon on the basis of its own interests rather than the memorandum concluded by the United States and Iran.

As for future agreements, I can only comment on what we are actually witnessing. Almost a year ago, another agreement - not formally signed but nonetheless concluded - was reached between the United States and Russia, when, in Alaska, the American side proposed, and President Putin accepted, a settlement framework put forward by the United States.

If you read what President Trump said immediately after the Alaska summit, you will see that he spoke very highly about the agreement, saying that the process was now underway and so forth. Europe and Ukraine, though, said they hadn’t been part of it and that the agreement did not concern them. They have since done everything possible to try to steer the United States away from that course. President Trump has not commented on these efforts and has not declared that Alaska arrangements no longer exist. In marked contrast, the Europeans and the Ukrainian regime have publicly stated that the Alaska understandings are dead and they themselves have buried them.

So, I’m not in a position to judge how the United States will approach any particular agreement concluded with its participation. I understand, though, that it faces domestic political undercurrents. Given the circumstances, I’d be hard pressed to predict anything concerning implementation of whatever has been agreed upon with the United States.

Question: If I may, I’d like to go back to the second part of my earlier question about how Russia views the renewed military strikes and military aggression against Iran.

Sergey Lavrov: We regard this as violation of the memorandum. There’s not much I can say about this. It is unfortunate because civilian infrastructure in Iran has been impacted, as have civilian facilities in the GCC member states.

Most importantly, it does not bring a settlement any closer. On the contrary, it closes the door that the memorandum appeared to have opened.

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