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Russia Should Ensure Defense Ability: FM
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said his country's main foreign policy objective is to secure its national interests and to ensure its ability to defend itself.
"It would be impossible to build a foreign policy, a competent foreign policy, without taking account of the country's defense interests, namely, the position of our armed forces," Ivanov told the Russian ORT television station late on November 20.
On the assertion that "definite circles" in the West regard Russia as a "geopolitical adversary," Ivanov said: "We do not consider anybody to be our enemy."
But "the advocates of the National Missile Defense system, those who want to enlarge NATO to Russian borders do not care for Russia's national interests," he stressed. "Therefore, we have started looking on things more realistically."
Ivanov said the country's top military leaders who had met earlier November 20 gave a " realistic assessment of what is going on" in the world.
"Most people thought that with the start of democratic reforms in Russia in the early 1990s, the West will welcome us to its arms and will open the doors to us." Ivanov said. "But the hopes of many Russians have not come true. Life turned out to be much more complicated."
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