Current major changes in the Middle East affect Russia’s vital interests and the security of its citizens in the Middle East and North Africa is a top priority, the Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday, February 23.

The ministry’s board met earlier in the day to discuss Russia’s foreign policy tasks in the Middle East and North Africa. Priority was given to more active work to consolidate Russia’s positions in these regions.

The participants in the meeting stated that “on the whole the region has entered a period of long and deep transformation” which will be “fraught with stronger dangerous challenges for inter-civilisation relations, non-proliferation regimes, the right against international terrorism, drug trafficking, illegal migration, and cross-border crime”.

The diplomats stressed that “a way out of the upheavals in several Arab countries lies in law and peaceful methods only, and in dialogue on the development of democratic processes and reforms”