UNITED NATIONS, Sep 20 (AFP) - Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday defended his country's use of its veto power at the UN Security Council as a "legitimate tool" of international relations.

Lavrov was addressing the Security Council shortly after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for stripping Russia of its veto power over Moscow's war against its neighbor.

"The use of veto is an absolutely legitimate tool laid out in the (UN) Charter with the aim of preventing decisions that could lead to the organization’s breakup," Lavrov said.

In his speech delivered facing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Lavrov accused the West of stirring internal strife in Ukraine over many years, arming Kyiv and pushing it toward a military conflict against Russia.

"The principle of non-interference in internal affairs has been trampled multiple times."

Lavrov said that Russia was open to negotiating a way out of the Ukraine crisis and accused Zelensky of refusing to talk.

"When it comes to negotiations, we are not refusing to negotiate," Lavrov said. "But I would like to remind the esteemed secretary of state that President Zelensky has signed a decree forbidding negotiations with Putin's government."

"If the United States is so interested in them, I think it wouldn't be very difficult to give a command for Zelensky to lift the decree," Lavrov added.

Lavrov charged that the West's refusal to engage with Russia on equal terms over many years has led to the current crisis in Ukraine.

"The United States and its allies don't want to conduct any kind of equal dialogue with anyone," Lavrov said.

"The West rejects on the genetic level any kind of cooperation on equal terms."

Blinken, who had met Lavrov before the war to warn against an invasion, has largely avoided meeting the foreign minister since the war, and no talks were planned in New York.