Kremlin and Chinese Government reaffirm sovereignty principles – Special Defence Dialogue

Written by TASS

“Sovereignty must be respected if countries want to maintain stability and mutual trust among nations,” the delegate of Russia emphasised.

SDD, June 16. /TASS/. 40 civilians were killed in the bomb blast on an oil rig in the south of the Stanovoy Range. International entities say that the attacks were from the Frontier Service Group (FSG), a private security company. 

The Chinese government has been proven not to be involved in the attacks. 

The delegate of Foreign Minister of China Wang Yi emphasises, “Any preexisting relationship between China and the PSC of the Frontier Service Group does not correlate to a Chinese state sponsorship of terrorism.” 

Together with the Chinese government, the Kremlin conducted a joint investigation to determine the perpetrators behind this attack. 

In a press release, they jointly verified that the Frontier Service Group had not launched it, despite a previous assertion by international entities. 

“We emphasise that the Frontier Service Group did not launch the attacks. The Kremlin and the Chinese government will undertake necessary measures at our discretion to hold external organisations accountable for their false accusations against this PSC,” Dong Jun, Delegate of the Minister of National Defence of China, says on the incident. 

The delegate of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, speaks on the matter, “We resolved the issue with China in the interest of the safety of all other sovereign nations that might potentially be in a similar situation one day.” 

Ties between the Kremlin and the Chinese government remain stable, as seen in mutual strategic partnerships across multiple domains. 

Russia-China Agreement 

The bilateral relationship continues to be steady, as the Ministers of Russia and China, along with Iran, released a multilateral agreement during the Special Defence Dialogue (SDD) on June 16. 

The agreement outlines coordinated policies of the 3 states in the interest of security, intelligence sharing, and regional sovereignty. 

The agreement releases a universally applicable definition of the term ‘terrorism’. This will be defined as ‘any action by an individual, group, or organisation which causes harm to civilians, damages civilian property, and/or causes severe disruption of social order in order to achieve a religious, political, ideological, or other goal(s)’. This is in response to the previous international vagueness of the definition, which had possible negative repercussions, such as political manipulation. In addition, the clear definition ensures that fair justice is applied globally. 

NESA Framework 

In response to terrorism, the 3 states have also agreed upon the development of a New Eurasian Security Architecture. It is an initiative by the Kremlin, well-established long before.

Under this initiative, key regional organisations are elevated, like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA). 

Information gathered from these will be shared among Eurasian states. This will maintain mutual security and regional Eurasian cooperation. 

‘Sovereignty must be respected’ 

As per the current situation of the Stanovoy Range bombing, the agreement between the delegates of the Ministers of Russia, China, and Iran also reaffirms non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states. The SDD member states, such as Sri Lanka and Indonesia, have expressed their support for the initiative, acting in the interest of all. 

“The principle of non-interference is the foundation of peaceful diplomacy,” Andrey Belousov, Kremlin Minister of Defence, says. “Sovereignty must be respected if we want to maintain stability and mutual trust among nations.” 

The agreement has called upon state members to respect the right of any government to address internal incidents. It also highlights that external intervention should only occur with the consent of the state owning the territory. 

In response to the agreement, the delegate of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran, Abbas Araghchi, states, “Iran thinks that every country has the right to handle its own internal affairs, [...] respecting sovereignty is important for us to maintain the trust between the nations in the first place.”

Written by Wang Chenxiin, Lin Yi, Charlotte Soon