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TEHRAN, June 08 -Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says his country has never “asked to be allowed back” to the G8 group of industrial nations as it believes that Russia is currently working perfectly well in other formats, including the G20 that is the most promising platform in the long run.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) -“When our western partners decided to return to the G7 format, we accepted their decision and have been working on other platforms since then,” the Russian foreign minister said in an interview with Channel One Russia on Saturday, adding that members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), BRICS, and the G20 “share our approaches.”
The G8, which once grouped Russia, Canada, the US, the UK, France, Italy, Japan and Germany, decided in March 2014 to temporally suspend Russia’s membership and reformat as the G7, whose 44th summit is currently being held in the Canadian town of La Malbaie, north of Quebec.
The suspension of Russia's participation in the inter-governmental political forum occurred shortly after the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea rejoined Russia in a referendum with other members of the group accusing Moscow of “annexing” the region.
Moscow, however, strongly rejected the allegation, saying that it had been the Crimeans' will displayed in the plebiscite, in which 96.8 percent of participants voted in favor of the move, to become part of the Russian Federation, and not an occupation or a forced annexation as they claim to be. In early 2017, Russia announced its permanent withdrawal from the G8.
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