On December 4, Ambassador Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka accompanied by Madame Sanja Jayatilleka attended a meeting at Trialogue Club International, a meeting place of the Russian and foreign diplomats, politicians and experts for discussions on foreign and security policy. It was the last event of the Club for this year. The Club will celebrate its 25th anniversary next year.
Chairman of Trialogue Club and the PIR Center's Executive Board, Former Head of Department of the International Treaties, Russian Ministry of Defense, General Evgeny Buzhinskiy, addressed the audience with introductory remarks on nuclear weapons issue. Director of PIR Center Albert Zulkharneev summed up the results of the dynamic work of Trialogue Club in the international environment and informed about the plans of the Club for the coming year.
Head of the Center for Global Trends and International Organization, the Diplomatic Academy of the MFA, PIR Center Founder and Special Advisor Dr. Vladimir Orlov delivered a keynote speech on "Cyber tensions to cyber wars? US-Russian Relations in the Area of International Information Security". Dr. Orlov noted that cyber war is already raging and reasonable agreements based on the international law and aimed at minimizing the threat of information weapons use need to be considered. He predicted that the world was headed towards the equivalent of the Cuban Missile Crisis in cyberspace.
During the discussion part of the meeting H.E. Dr. Jayatilleka asked the speakers whether there was greater continuity or discontinuity in US-Russia relations. Answering, Dr. Orlov said that the various factions among the western policy-making elite unrealistically hoped to break-up the Russia-China relationship. General Buzhinskiy said that the "confrontation" between the West and Russia will continue for a long time. Both speakers said that culture was not the reason; the reason was Russia's challenge to US claims of world leadership, and Russia, China and other nations emergence as powerful players in an increasingly multi-polar world which the US was unwilling to accept.
