Moscow: U.S. to Draw More Division Lines at Summit for Democracy
MOSCOW (TASS) - Russian
presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has described the forthcoming Summit for Democracy, due in December, as the United States’ attempt to draw more division lines. He stressed Russia’s negative attitude to this event.
“Our attitude to this event is unequivocally negative. It is nothing but an attempt to draw more division lines. In the early 1990s, we worked very hard for reducing and eliminating these division lines, but the United Sates now prefers to create more divides and to rate countries that are good, in its opinion, and bad, in its opinion as well,” Peskov told the media on Wednesday.
The U.S. stance, he said, is disconnected from reality.
“It is utterly dissonant with the general sentiment in the world. Ever more countries prefer to decide on their own what kind of life they should live, without caring a bit what somebody else might say. Yet the Untied States continues such attempts at lecturing others,” Peskov said.
The Kremlin official stressed that Washington was trying to impose on other countries its own idea of democracy and to privatize this term.
“They wish to privatize the very word ‘democracy.’ In their opinion democracy is only what corresponds to Washington’s understanding of democracy. Obviously, this cannot be so and must not be so. And in fact, it is not,” he concluded.
Washington is going to hold a Summit for Democracy for the leaders of countries, human rights activists and businessmen in a video conference mode on December 9-10. A total of 110 countries and territories have been invited to attend.
Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the United States-arranged Summit for Democracy was aimed at “dividing people and countries into democratic and not democratic.” In his opinion, by inviting countries to such an event the United States tries to make everybody think this is a massive movement. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described the Summit for Democracy as a “chimera, expected to show that the collective West has some constructive, unifying agenda.”
China Opposes U.S. Inviting
Taiwan to Democracy Summit
And also, on Wednesday, China’s Foreign Ministry Zhao Lijian expressed strong opposition to the U.S. for inviting Taiwan to the “Summit for Democracy” which will be held next month virtually.
Speaking at a daily press briefing, Lijian also urged the U.S. to stop colluding with Taiwan “independence” separatists, CGTN reported.
China reacted after the Joe Biden administration officially released the list of participants to its upcoming “summit for democracy”, which includes the island of Taiwan.
The invitation comes days after President Xi Jinping and his U.S. counterpart held a video summit where the Chinese leader warned Biden that encouraging Taiwanese independence would be “playing with fire”.
There are 110 participants on the U.S. state department’s invitation list for the virtual event on December 9 and 10 including India but not China and Russia.