PARIS, February 13. /ITAR-TASS/. Political dialogue between Russia and France “is basically important,” Jean-Maurice Ripert, who was recently appointed as French ambassador in Russia, told Itar-Tass on Thursday. He participated in an annual business forum “Russian Meetings” in the French capital.
“France and Russia are permanent members of the UN Security Council, they have common interests. So, it is of paramount importance to attain mutual accord on most important international issues, but not to be in opposition to each other,” the ambassador said.
“Political dialogue between our countries is based on close positions on the scope of issues, though sometimes the countries have different positions over the ways it is better to attain these goals,” he noted.
“It is very important that France and Russia have much more common points of view than disagreements,” Jean-Maurice Ripert added. “A difficult Syrian problem can be given as an example,” the ambassador noted. “Each country has been preparing peace talks Geneva-2 in its own way. Russia and France seek to combat killings of people in that country and obtain the clashes to stop. Peace in Syria is vitally needed for peace in the whole region, Syrian events affect the whole world,” Ripert said.
“France’s main striving is to attain peace process launched at international peace conference Geneva-2 to be successful and to lead to the goals. So, Syrian negotiating parties came to terms on a basis of agreements of the first Geneva conference,” he noted. “So, we should seek for assassinations of civilians and ongoing humanitarian tragedy to stop,” Ripert noted.
“All this should help advance to a country that will be territorially integral, democratic and respecting rights (of ethnic and religious) minorities in Syria that will be a friend and partner of all other countries in the world,” the French ambassador in Russia said.