MOSCOW, September 28. /TASS/: Coordinating the international rules of responsible behavior by countries in the cyberspace is becoming an ever more vital task. Such a set of rules is to establish the equal rights of all countries to participation in governing the Internet, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an article for External Economic Relations magazine.
Lavrov recalled that back in 1998 Russia addressed the United Nations with a warning about the risks the cyberspace was fraught with and suggested ways of resisting them. Russia, he said, sees three groups of threats in this field: military-political, terrorist and criminal ones. Lavrov stressed that Moscow's stance on the issue of struggle against these threats remained unchanged.
"Taking part in discussing and solving this problem should be all countries without an exception. Also, it is important to take into account all other actors concerned: businesses, civil society and scientific circles. The search for a universal solution is possible only through talks under the UN auspices; the strategic aim of such negotiations should be the prevention of conflicts in the cyberspace and the use of IT and communication technologies exclusively for peaceful purposes," Lavrov believes.
"In this connection it is becoming increasingly urgent to promptly coordinate the rules of countries' responsible behavior in the cyberspace, which would enforce the principles of respect for sovereignty, non-interference in internal affairs, non-use of force or threats of using force, the right to individual and collective self-defense, respect for the basic human rights and freedoms and also the equal rights of all states to participate in governing the Internet," Lavrov said.
