Russia welcomes Alliance of Civilisations initiative for regional strategies.

MOSCOW, September 9 (Itar-Tass) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov received the visiting High Representative of the UN Secretary
General for the Alliance of Civilizations (AoC), Jorge Sampaio, on
Wednesday, on September 8.
The High Representative informed the Minister about the Alliance's
work in 2009-2010, in particular, about the Third Alliance of
Civilisations Forum in Rio de Janeiro on May 28-29, which demonstrated the
growing interest of the world community in inter-civilisation dialogue and
helped to establish the AoC as a global initiative that extends beyond the
framework of West-Islamic World relations.
He also reported about the new plans of the Alliance for the period
until the end of 2011 and drew attention to a new aspect in AoC activities
- the development of regional strategies.
The Russian side expressed support to this initiative. Lavrov, in
turn, dwelt on the questions of the implementation of the National Plan
for Relations with the Alliance of Civilisations that has been approved by
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and that envisions broad cooperation
among government entities, nongovernmental organisations, and members of
the academic community and other segments of Russian civil society in this
endeavour.
-0-zak/