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Syiran opposition should participate in Geneva-2

Russia's Foreign Minister urges to Syrian opposition to "take up their courage to go to Geneva”

MOSCOW, December 12. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia urges the Syrian opposition to come to senses, first catch a hare then cook it and come to participate in a conference Geneva-2 over peaceful Syrian crisis resolution, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters on Thursday.

“We hope that Geneva-2 will lead to peace, crisis resolution in Syria, the end to violence and will provide conditions for people to come back to their homes and so that Syria will remain a secular state, a democratic state, where people are feeling themselves comfortably,” the Russian foreign minister told reporters.

“Neither we (Russia), nor the Americans, nor the Europeans, nor the Gulf states, but the Syrian people themselves should settle these issues,” Lavrov noted.

“The top task is that the opposition will get together, take up their courage to go to Geneva,” the minister said.

The Russian chief diplomat noted that the Syrian opposition has different movements and “the field commanders refuse to recognize the common position.” “All this is alarming for us. Most important is that the dialogue will be representative,” the Russian foreign minister noted.

He recalled that Russia had already fulfilled its task and agreed with the Syrian incumbent authorities to participate in a peace conference.

Lavrov is convinced that “a representative dialogue is needed with due account of the whole scope of opinions” at Geneva-2. “We are working on this. The Americans are working on this either,” he said.

An international peace conference on Syria dubbed Geneva-2 is scheduled for January 22, 2014.