ISTANBUL

Russia’s top diplomat claimed on Sunday that the US and NATO are attempting to take control of the Asia-Pacific region during a news conference on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh.

“There is currently an inclusive structure in the region, but the US and NATO are trying to take control over this space. They have a strategy of promoting non-inclusive structures that compete with the inclusive ones that have been created around ASEAN,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the press.

Lavrov also claimed that the intention of the West is to militarize the region to “contain China and Russia's interests in the Asia-Pacific.”

He further said "one of the manifestations of this policy is the AUKUS bloc," formed through a trilateral security deal inked by Australia, the UK, and US in September 2021.

“They (AUKUS) are trying to drag New Zealand, Canada, and Japan into this bloc,” he added.

Lavrov separately expressed that there was no collective decision on the results of the ASEAN summit, as the US insisted on an “unacceptable assessment of the situation in Ukraine.”

He noted that a communique regarding further cooperation will be released by the Cambodian presidency.

On the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Phnom Penh, Lavrov held four meetings on Saturday with his counterparts from Indonesia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.