OREANDA-NEWS Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has arrived in New York to participate in the high-level week of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly, "Interfax" correspondent reports.

The Russian minister is expected to hold dozens of bilateral meetings and take part in a number of multilateral events "on the sidelines" of the UN General Assembly.

As Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told "Interfax" earlier, the possibility of a meeting between Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on September 23 is being worked out. The Russian Foreign minister himself said that he plans to discuss Washington's vision of the situation in Ukraine during the meeting with Rubio, in particular.

The US State Department previously reported that Rubio had scheduled a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday. These negotiations appear in Rubio's work schedule, published by the American Foreign Ministry.

Minister Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Rubio will discuss aspects of cooperation between Moscow and Washington within the framework of the United Nations, the "Izvestia" newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing the Russian Foreign Ministry.

"During the upcoming meeting between Sergey Lavrov and Marco Rubio, issues of cooperation between the two countries will be discussed at the World Organization. As permanent members of its Security Council, Russia and the United States have enormous potential for developing cooperation. Unfortunately, it remains largely unsolved," Russian diplomats told the newspaper.

""For a long time now, our countries have been unable to find "common denominators" on a number of sensitive and high-profile dossiers on the UN agenda, which further increases the degree of tension within its walls," the newspaper writes.

"The issue of establishing cooperation between Moscow and Washington on generic subjects, country files and certain aspects of the functioning of the World Organization has been discussed for some time through our permanent missions," the ministry said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry also noted changes in American policy within the United Nations, the newspaper reports.

"After Donald Trump's return to the White House, Washington's policy at the United Nations has become more pragmatic. Against this background, our main disagreements are not with the Americans, but with the Europeans, who continue to speak out from radical and ideologized positions in the spirit of the general political line of the European Union Brussels," the Russian diplomats added.

According to Zakharova, the central element of Minister Lavrov's work in New York will be the Russian minister's speech from the rostrum of the General Assembly on September 26, which will highlight in detail Russian approaches to the most pressing problems of our time, assess the current activities of the World Organization, and present proposals to restore the UN's position and authority.

"Zakharova noted that the week will take place in conditions of increasing turbulence in world affairs, primarily due to the "desire of the collective West to prevent the establishment of a multipolar world order, the aggravation of global challenges, an increase in the number of conflict foci, and the intensification of crisis phenomena in the global economy."

According to her, against the background of such a difficult geopolitical situation, the Russian side will focus on such important issues as strengthening the foundations of multipolarity, building an architecture of equal and indivisible security in Eurasia, countering colonialism in all its forms and manifestations, fair reform of the global financial architecture, consolidating international efforts in the fight against terrorism, preventing the erosion of existing ones and developing new agreements in the field of disarmament, strengthening equal cooperation in the field of human rights protection.

In an interview with "Interfax" on the eve of the high-level week, the Director of the Department of International Organizations (DIA) Kirill Logvinov, the Russian Foreign Ministry, said that the Russian delegation was flying to New York with a clear understanding of what the World Organization wanted to see.

"First of all, the United Nations must remain a unique intergovernmental "platform", the main feature of which is to follow the immutable principle of sovereign equality of states. Compliance with this principle by all, both member countries and secretariat staff, will allow the UN to continue to offer universal models for solving global policy issues, which, in turn, will eliminate the possibility of any parallel competing formats," the high-ranking diplomat noted. "Accordingly, throughout the 81st session of the UN General Assembly, our initiatives will be aimed in one way or another at helping to improve the quality of the World Organization's activities and improve the institutions of the UN system," Logvinov said.

According to him, it is necessary to restore the central coordinating role of the United Nations, including through the return of all players to an equal dialogue in the interests of finding compromises and reaching consensus.