Russia warns US-led AUKUS, Quad 'detrimental' to Indo-Pacific cooperation

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has denounced recently formed US-led Indo-Pacific alliances — AUKUS and Quad — describing them as “detrimental” to the existing system of cooperation in the region.

Delivering a speech at the 29th Assembly of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy on Saturday, Lavrov said that all these alliances are aimed at undermining the traditional ways of cooperation between countries in the region, primarily the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

“One of the most fashionable trends today is the so-called Indo-Pacific strategies that are invented by the United States,” in particular AUKUS and Quad, Lavrov said, which are created to “blur the universal formats in the Asia-Pacific region.”

“All of this follows the line of eroding the universal formats in the Asia-Pacific Region which existed for the past decades under the auspices of ASEAN," he added.

Lavrov noted that the US-led alliances are “detrimental to the existing system" in the Indo-Pacific region.

The US announced last month the formation of a new alliance with Australia and Britain. The trilateral partnership, dubbed AUKUS, instantly drew condemnation from China, Russia, and France.

The new security pact effectively scuttled a previous $40-billion deal between France and Australia that was signed to supply French-designed conventional diesel-electric submarines to the Australians.

Australia instead opted for US nuclear-powered submarines as part of the AUKUS alliance, which allows Canberra to build at least eight nuclear submarines, using US technology.

Russia has warned about the “alarming” plan, calling on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to keep a close eye on that.

Australia will become only the second country after the United Kingdom to be given access to the US nuclear technology to build nuclear-powered submarines.

ME