“It is time to put diplomacy back on the world stage”. The V Global Forum of Young Diplomats opens in Kazan.

The V Global Forum of Young Diplomats was inaugurated in Kazan on 27 August 2022 with the slogan ‘A New Time for Diplomacy’.

The Forum brought together representatives of youth diplomacy from 44 countries. Konstantin Kolpakov, the moderator of the ceremony and the Chairman of the Council of Young Diplomats, said that four discussion panels were planned within the framework of the Forum, and the central event would be the ceremony of joining the International Association of Young Diplomats.

The Forum began with a video message by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. He insisted on consolidating dialogue between countries: ‘Today, dialogue should not be curtailed, but on the contrary, intensified. It has already been said many times that numerous challenges of our time can be effectively overcome only through rapprochement of efforts and on the basis of universally recognized norms of international law’.

Sergey Lavrov added that the Forum of Young Diplomats was designed to contribute to the overall work of maintaining the atmosphere of trust and mutual understanding in the international arena.

‘As we know, over the last quarter century, there have been tectonic shifts in the international arena, strong independent actors in Asia, in the Middle East, in Latin America and Africa have emerged and are increasingly asserting themselves. Through a nationally oriented foreign policy course, they consolidate their sovereignty, and achieve impressive success in various fields. Thus, modern world is objectively multipolar. And this geopolitical reality is impossible to ignore. Under these conditions Russia – the largest Eurasian and Euro-Pacific power, a civilization state – continues to pursue a peace-loving foreign policy course, promote a positive unifying and forward-looking global and regional agenda,’ the Minister highlighted.

Rustam Minnikhanov, the President of Tatarstan and the Chairman of the Group of Strategic Vision ‘Russia – Islamic World’, began his speech by thanking the organizers of the Forum, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Minister Sergey Lavrov personally, and said that the choice of Kazan as the venue for the event was not random: ‘Kazan has great experience. Since 2019, the Forum of Young Diplomats with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation has been held here on a regular basis. In 2020, we raised the BRICS Forum of Young Diplomats, expecting that this positive experience will be a good fit for holding future conferences of this type at our venue. In recent years the geography and formats of Tatarstan’s interaction with diplomatic missions of the world have expanded. Thanks to the coordinated work of the Council of Young Diplomats, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, the Tatarstan Government, the Ministry of Youth Affairs of the Republic of Tatarstan and the Academy of Youth Diplomacy, the Kazan Diplomatic Club has been established and successfully operates. It unites all foreign diplomatic missions based in the capital of our republic. It is gratifying that today, during this challenging time there are delegates from many countries. This is clear evidence of the interest in the upcoming discussion and the willingness to engage in mutually respectful dialogue’.

‘Kazan –Global International Youth Centre’

Speaking to the Forum participants Boris Chernyshev, the Deputy Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, highlighted that Kazan had not been chosen by chance to host the Forum of Diplomats: ‘In fact, it is very important to be in Kazan, because this is a city with incredible youth potential and an incredible management team, a city with wonderful traditions’.

Konstantin Kolpakov, the Chairman of the Council of Young Diplomats, noted that without the support of the Russian Foreign Ministry it would not have been possible to create such an effective platform as the Forum of Young Diplomats. He invited to the microphone Konstantin Shuvalov, the Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Special Representative of the Minister for Interaction with Organizations of Muslim States, Deputy Chairman of the Strategic Vision Group “Russia – Islamic World”, who said that Kazan, proclaimed that year as the OIC Youth Capital and hosting the Global Youth Summit, could well be called the Main International Youth Centre.

He noted that the leadership of the Republic of Tatarstan had made the year a year of active international contacts.

‘The Forum of Young Diplomats has gained traditions and popularity. This is confirmed by the presence of Russian statesmen, leading experts and young diplomats from different countries. Our venue, based on the concept of ‘horizontal diplomacy’, provides an excellent opportunity for young foreign policy experts from around the world to have an informal, engaged exchange of views on pressing issues on the international agenda in direct contact with representatives of the authorities and expert community,’ the speaker said, adding that such forums were especially important in the current climate of global crisis.

The first panel discussion is entitled “A New Time for Diplomacy”. Konstantin Shuvalov stressed that the chosen topic showed the irreversibility of the world transformation that had already taken place and the impossibility of returning to the failed, monopolistic, neoliberal project of the ‘notorious Pax Americana’.

‘Alas, there is a lack of common will of humanity today. More often it is said that there are them and there are us, there are elves and there are orcs’.

In his video address to the participants of the Forum of Young Diplomats, Konstantin Kosachev, the Senator of the Russian Federation, the Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council, also spoke about failure – the failure of global diplomacy: ‘As one American journalist accurately said at the beginning of the last century: ‘Army are people gathered in one place with one single purpose: to correct the mistakes of diplomats’. Behind every conflict there is unwillingness to hear the other side, to consider its interests, and therein lies a huge risk, because all previous decisions in diplomacy, from the Congress of Vienna to the UN and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, were based on attempts to bring the interests of very different powers under a common denominator. Alas, there is a lack of common will of humanity today. More often it is said that there are them and there are us, there are elves and there are orcs, and anyone who does not share our values is not entitled to respect for their own interests. Such logic is a destructive environment for diplomacy. This is the reason why Russian diplomacy was trying to create a universal security model, which would implement the most reliable principle enshrined in international documents: not to ensure one’s own security at the expense of another country. We can only regret that in 2008 the ready-made universal treaty on the new security architecture was simply ignored. And last December, quite realistic Russian proposals to the United States and NATO were not heard. I am absolutely convinced that implementation of the Russian diplomacy proposal would have prevented all negative scenarios. There is only one way out – it is time to put diplomacy back on the world stage’.

Continuing the theme in his video message, Leonid Slutsky, Head of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) in the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation and Chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, said that the Forum of Young Diplomats was ‘diplomacy within diplomacy’. That it, today’s young diplomats will become ministers, presidents, heads of departments in the future, and, of course, establishing cooperation between them now, in Kazan, in the centre of interreligious and international dialogue, may contribute to building close and friendly relations between states.

‘What is diplomacy without well-educated diplomats?’

Vladimir Morozov, Vice Rector for Human Resources Policy at Moscow State Institute of International Relations, told the audience about how international cooperation in education was developing. He stressed that despite Russia’s current policy of isolation in the world Moscow State Institute of International Relations did not stop cooperating with Western countries in the field of education and was increasing the number of foreign students. ‘Even those students that represented European and North American countries still completed the academic year with us, albeit in part-time format. Unfortunately, many of them had to leave the Russian Federation at the insistence of their embassies, but we know that many of them nevertheless have stayed and study in our country. Moscow State Institute of International Relations today has more than 200 agreements on cooperation with foreign universities from 65 countries. Many of these agreements were signed with universities in Western and Eastern Europe, the USA and Canada.’ Vladimir Morozov also said that Moscow State Institute of International Relations continued to participate in international university rankings.

‘Consolidation of ties now can affect the fate of international relations’

Evgeny Primakov, Head of the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation (Rossotrudnichestvo), welcomed the participants and organizers of the Forum in a video message. ‘An important goal in diplomacy in the current international situation is not only to preserve and consolidate relations between friendly countries, but also to find common ground and common reference points where it sometimes seems impossible. I hope that at the Forum you will manage to establish fruitful contacts with your counterparts from different countries, since in the future it is such connections that will help to affect the fate of international relations,’ Evgeny Primakov noted.

Konstantin Kolpakov, Chairman of the Council of Young Diplomats, said that the Council had recently established relations with similar structures in a number of friendly countries, in particular, in Abkhazia, Belarus, the AUE and Kyrgyzstan. He introduced the Chairperson of the Club of Young Diplomats of the Republic of Belarus, Darya Shmanay, to the participants of the Forum. She thanked the organizers and noted that the format and atmosphere of the event made it possible not only to exchange business contacts, but also to make friends from all over the world. ‘A cooperation agreement is signed between the Club of Young Diplomats at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus and the Council of Young Diplomats at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, within which we hold annual bilateral consultations on topical issues of the international agenda,’ she added.

The Youth Diplomacy Academy of the Republic of Tatarstan with its permanent head and founder Dilbar Sadykova played a significant role in organization of the V Global Forum of Young Diplomats. Dilbar Sadykova also delivered her welcoming speech and noted that a lot of interesting joint work awaited the participants. She said that Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassadors of Chad, Mali, Guinea-Bissau that were present at the Forum would join the sessional meetings.

Boris Chernyshov, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, told journalists after the opening ceremony: ‘We will feel the results of this Forum in five to ten years, when those who are present today will become Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Heads of Foreign Policy Departments, authors of doctrines and managers who will see how the world will be divided into spheres of influence in the future’.

Answering the journalists’ question about how Tatarstan’s contribution to the development of international relations with countries of the Islamic world was assessed , Konstantin Shuvalov, Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Special Representative of the Minister for Interaction with Organizations of Muslim Countries, Deputy Chairman of the Group of Strategic Vision  ‘Russia – Islamic World’, said: ‘This contribution was assessed very substantially the day before yesterday, when Sergey Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister, presented a badge for contribution to the development of international cooperation to President of the Republic of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov, who is, among other things, the Chairman of the Group of Strategic Vision ‘Russia – Islamic World’ and performs these functions by direct order of President Putin, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Tatarstan has many years of experience, not only through the leadership of the Group, but also through such a great initiative as the KazanSummit International Economic Forum, which has recently become part of the Group’s platform of initiatives and activities.

Chairman of the Council of Young Diplomats Konstantin Kolpakov told journalists about the history of the Global Forum of Young Diplomats, which began in Sochi in 2017. It was the time when the decision was taken to establish the International Association of Young Diplomats, with new members joining in the coming days. ‘So far we have received about ten applications, individual and collective. Thus, we already have more than 50 members of the Association,’ Konstantin Kolpakov said.

Timur Suleimanov, Minister for Youth Affairs of the Republic of Tatarstan, who, according to journalists, became the ‘dessert’ among the speakers to whom the press-approach was organized, said that young diplomats from 44 countries had come to the Forum: ‘129 people. These are the people who are responsible for the development of bilateral relations with Russia and those people who understand that responsibility that lies on them. We are very pleased that Russia and the Republic of Tatarstan have so many friends. Geography of the participants of the Kazan Global Youth Summit, in the framework of which this Forum is held, is even wider – 69 countries. They are representatives of the largest foreign and international organizations that represent the interests of young people in their countries’.

In the afternoon there were two sessions on “Diplomacy in Modern Times: Challenges and Trends of the XXI century” and “Digitalization, Information and Cyber Security in Contemporary International Relations’.

Speaking at the first session, Vice Consul of the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Kazan Pian Xiaoqiang also noted, as did Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Konstantin Kosachev earlier at the opening of the Forum, that the world needed to embrace the concept of common, comprehensive, shared and sustainable security: ‘The fate of humanity, common and global security, is indivisible. No country can or should achieve its own absolute security at the expense of the security of other countries. International and regional security cannot and must not be ensured at the expense of strengthening military blocs, creating ideological iron curtains, and splitting production and supply chains. Only by firmly adhering to the concept of mutual benefit. And by taking into account security of other countries in seeking own security can we embark on a mutually beneficial security path and form a secure international community’.

The V Global Forum of Young Diplomats will continue until 29 August and will end with signing of a resolution whose main message, according to Konstantin Kolpakov, will be ‘to emphasize the role of diplomacy as a means of peaceful resolution of existing disputes and the primacy of international law and the UN Charter’.

GSV "Russia - Islamic world"