Eliminate ‘root causes’ of Ukraine conflict, devise new European security architecture: Russia

United Nations, July 16 (IANS) The world should address the “root causes” that caused a “crisis” in Europe and sparked the Ukrainian conflict, while the West must back off from threatening Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday.Any “political and diplomatic settlement (of the Ukraine conflict) should be accompanied by specific steps aimed at removing the threats to the Russian Federation posed by the (West)”, he told a ministerial summit at the UN Security Council, listing the measures to “restore trust and stabilise the situation”, RT reported.”The root causes of the crisis that has broken out in Europe should be dealt with once and for all.”He noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin had in June outlined specific conditions for “sustainable peace” in Ukraine, saying a ceasefire could be initiated if there was a full withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from “all Russian territories”, including Donetsk and Lugansk, and the regions of Kherson and Zaporozhye, and Kiev also undertake a legal commitment never to join NATO.Any final deal should be recognised in Western capitals and pave the way to lift sanctions against Russia, the Russian leader had added. Both Kiev and Western powers dismissed the offer, which came around the “Ukraine Peace Summit” in Switzerland.The Russian Foreign Minister also stressed that Russia and the West need mutual “guarantees and agreements”. He also said that the “new geostrategic realities on the Eurasian continent” should be taken into account as well and a new “pan-continental architecture of truly equal and indivisible security” come up.He also called for the restoration of the global and regional balance of power, “along with repairing injustices in the world economy”.A multipolar world should not have any monopolies in the financial or currency regulation, trade, or technologies, Lavrov said, as he also sought reformation of the World Trade Organisation to reflect the “real weight” of non-Western centres of growth and development.