West lacks experts on Russia: Lavrov

Moscow, Sep 28 (IANS/ITAR -TASS) The West's current attitude towards Russia was due to lack of experts on Russia, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview Sunday.

"Since if this perception of new, self-confident Russia has become the reason for the actions we are witnessing now, then, probably, the West is lacking specialists on this country," the foreign minister said in an interview with St. Petersburg's television broadcaster Channel 5.

"This must be a consequence of the weakening after the collapse of the USSR, where popular ideas were about 'end of history', about no future for development, and the claims the entire world would live on using Western approaches."

Lavrov contended added that not everybody liked it when Russia gradually gained economic strength and began speaking in the international arena in an independent voice, not merely nodding to recipes from Western capital cities, including Washington.

As those forecasts failed, "somebody got angry, they began blaming us for their moods and failures", he said.

On NATO's presence in Eastern Europe, the Russian foreign minister said: "NATO claims to be for equal security for all Europeans, for search of settlement of security problems on the basis of mutual interests...We even remember the promises the alliance would not be expanding...Those claims turned out to be false."

"NATO continued expanding, and the attempts continue now... The alliance's military infrastructures are approaching our borders," Lavrov said.

"Territories of new members are used for deployment of sufficient armament, of which we have been assured as impossible -- that was even fixed in documents," he said.

--IANS/ITAR-TASS

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