MOSCOW, September 13 (Itar-Tass) —— Russia is ready to approve a resolution on Syria, but believes that there are no reasons to interfere in the Syrian domestic conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with the magazine International Life here on Thursday.
“We are ready to approve a resolution on Syria,” the foreign minister remarked. “For some unclear reasons everyone forgets that the UN Security Council had already approved two resolutions on Syria, and a communiqu· of the Action Group, which met in Geneva on June 30, was coordinated as well. We proposed to approve the Geneva communiqu· in the UN Security Council, but the United States refused to approve it, because the communiqu· did not contain any threats, unilateral assessments and sanctions against Assad’s rule. This was a weighted and well-balanced approach intended for the end to bloodshed in Syria,” Lavrov stated.
“We can guarantee that we will never violate our international commitments. Those, who have been working on this issue already for several years, realize now that this evokes a sharper irritation in the world community,” he said.
“Although this is not always demonstrated in public, but the overwhelming majority of countries do not want to continue this tendency,” he added. “Therefore, some countries, which want to undertake the foreign armed interference in Syria, are seeking to force the resolution through the UN Security Council with a reference to Chapter VII in the UN Charter, which spells out forced measures against the violating countries,” Lavrov stated. “But in this case I reiterate that this is an internal conflict and there are no reasons to interfere in the conflict on either side,” Lavrov said with confidence. “All warring parties in Syria should be made to stop urgently combat actions and get down to the table of negotiations,” the Russian foreign minister pointed out.
“We are doing this work with the Syrian government, which pledges that in case of a simultaneous and controlled ceasefire they are ready to agree on this issue with other parties to the conflict,” the minister explained. But the opposition strongly objects to take this step, demanding from the West and other countries to dispatch their contingents to overthrow the incumbent authorities in Damascus,” Lavrov underlined.