The Baltic Course
Nina Kolyako
17.07.2008.
President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev has endorsed Russia’s new foreign policy strategy. Regarding the Baltic countries, it states that the cooperation will only be possible in case Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia observe Russian-speaking residents’ rights, newspaper Vesti Segodna reports today.
Russia is inclined to maintain good neighborly relations with the Baltic countries. Observation of both sides’ interests should form the basis for it. The new strategy states that in this context the issue of Russian-speaking residents’ rights and the compliance of these rights with international regulations are crucially important for Russia.
One of Russia’s foreign policy priorities is also to provide support for the consolidation of its nationals’ organizations abroad in order to help these organizations to protect the rights of Russian diaspora in these countries, to maintain the ethnic identity and to strengthen their bound with the historical motherland.
Russia’s new foreign policy strategy also emphasizes Russia’s readiness to counteract manifestations of neo-fascism, any kind of racial discrimination, aggressive nationalism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia. It also states that Russia will oppose any attempts to rewrite history.
