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Middle East and North Africa

Lavrov: Demand for Assad’s resignation aimed at disrupting Geneva 2

Fight against extremism in Mideast depends on the upcoming conference, Foreign Minister says

© ITAR-TASS/Mikhail Pochuyev

MOSCOW, November 27. /ITAR-TASS/. The demand for Bashar Assad’s resignation is aimed at disrupting the Geneva-2 conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

“Those who say that it is worth waiting for the military balance to be established, or for a date when Assad will step down to be named, or put forward other preconditions are doing so with the unseemly purpose of hindering or disrupting the conference altogether,” Lavrov said.

Lavrov added that fight against extremism in the Middle East region will depend on success of the international conference.

“We speak about unification of all sound forces in the fight against terrorism that tries to sprout in the region, using Syria’s crisis,” he said.

All groups of Syria’s opposition Russia has had talks with express their intention to arrive in Moscow ahead of the Geneva II international conference on Syria, Lavrov concluded.

“We are discussing the meeting dates,” he said. “All those groups we have had talks with express their intention to come to Moscow.”

“Taking into account the date for the Geneva II conference (January 22), we still have some time to finalize dates for the Syrian opposition’s meeting in Moscow,” Lavrov said.

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Middle East and North Africa

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