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MOSCOW, November 7. /TASS/. The Western camp was unable to politicize the agenda of a recent summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) thanks to Russia’s efforts, a senior Russian diplomat said. Dmitry Birichevsky, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s department for economic cooperation, told a news conference that APEC is predominantly an economic forum in which geopolitics takes a back seat. "Over the past few years, our Western opponents have tried to put the Ukraine crisis at the forefront. At this year’s forum, again thanks to the effort of our delegation in collaboration with [South Korea’s] presidency and friendly nations, we avoided [that] as we showed that politics should not be discussed at venues where that's not the focus," the diplomat told reporters. "In general, everybody agreed with that, even as some speakers did voice, as our [foreign] minister likes to say, arrogant statements about our country and the special military operation," he noted. This "background" noise was not registered anywhere on paper though, Birichevsky added. "So, that summit will go down in history as quite a balanced meeting that did not prioritize politics over economic issues," he stressed. South Korea’s Gyeongju hosted an APEC summit from October 31-November 1.
