MOSCOW, November 20. /TASS/. The United States has passed to Russia certain information about the terrorist act on board Russia’s A321 airliner and the competent agencies are working with it, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s department for new challenges and threats Ilya Rogachev said in an interview with the Kommersant daily published on Friday.
"As far as I know, the American partners have passed to us certain information about the plane, and the competent agencies are working with it," the official said. "The circumstances of this tragedy are constantly discussed at different levels with the British side," he said.
According to Rogachev, Russia has for many years been consistently urging the partners "to join efforts to combat the common to all of us threat of terrorism, to cooperate in good faith on a truly collective basis without politicisation and indoctrination of this problem, without introducing double standards." "In the current situation, we believe that such cooperation is becoming imperative," he said.
At the same time, the diplomat said that at present the bilateral diplomatic contacts with the United States and the European Union on issues of combating terrorism have been fully suspended on their initiative. "How long will they punish themselves, refusing to accept our arguments, determining anti-terror cooperation by irrelevant conditions? Will they change their approaches to the fight against terrorism in Syria and Iraq? From our side, in any case, the door remains open," he added.
"A sincere commitment to the common goal should make us allies," Rogachev said.
"Perhaps this is revenge for our participation in the fight against the IS"
Ilya Rogachev also mentioned, that the terror act on board Russia’s A321 airliner might have been the revenge on Russia for its fight against the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organisation, but inaction in the fight against the terrorists would entail more serious consequences in the future.
"Perhaps this is revenge for our participation in the fight against the Islamic State terrorist group in Syria," he said. "But I have no doubt that if no action is taken then the terrorist threat will considerably grow in scale to us."
"Or should we wait until IS militants knock on our door - in the literal sense?" he said. "I am convinced that there is only one right answer - even more determined efforts to combat terrorism should be taken, as it is necessary to cut out this ‘malignant tumour’ as so far it has covered "only" half of Syria and almost half of Iraq."