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Russian Foreign Ministry: Competition is not Russia’s goal in fighting terrorism

Moscow continues favouring the creation of a broad international coalition under the UN supervision, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry department for new challenges and threats says

MOSCOW, December 18 /TASS/. Russia is not competing with anyone in fighting terrorism and continues favouring the creation of a broad counter-terrorism coalition under the UN supervision, Ilya Rogachev, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry department for new challenges and threats, said in an interview with TASS on Friday.

"Russian warplanes are gradually destroying the infrastructure, which the ISIS [the former name for the Islamic State — IS] is using for contraband trade with Syrian and Iraqi oil," Rogachev said.

"It looks as if our partners from the US-led coalition had finally noticed those targets and had started delivering air strikes at ISIS oil facilities," the Russian diplomat said.

Rogachev said there could be a bouquet of motives behind the US-led coalition’s struggle against terrorists. According to him, it could be a reaction to the terror attacks in Paris; jealousy of the effective actions by Russian aviation or something else.

"It may be, among other things, competition for the laurels in fighting the ISIS," Rogachev said. "Russia is not pursuing a goal to compete against someone. We continue favouring the creation of a broad international coalition under the UN supervision. However, it is good if this competitive battle increases the quality of the final product called security. After all, all of us, the entire world community, are the consumers of this product," Rogachev concluded.