MOSCOW, September 19. /TASS/. The United States-led international coalition is only simulating anti-terrorist efforts in the Middle East, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.
"Regrettably, all attempts of the international coalition to counter the terrorist group Islamic State look more like some demonstrative steps, an attempt at simulating anti-terrorist activity," she said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel. "First, Islamic State is only growing. Second, there is no model the coalition might offer as a successful project."
In her words, Russia stands for dialogue and coordination of all forces fighting against terrorist groups in the Middle East. "Instead of consolidating all efforts, pooling together all combat units that are fighting against Islamic State - and these are the Syrian army, Kurd forces - instead of beginning to exchange reconnaissance information, coordinating coalition air strikes, countering Islamic State propaganda, we see how the coalition countries are playing the ‘friend-or-foe’ game," she said.
Washington, according to the Russian diplomat, should lend an ear to Russia’s position on the Syrian problem, since from the very beginning Russia had been warning that the Arab Spring would lead to no democracy but would rather trigger growth of radical forces in the Middle East.
"Such notions as Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra [an extremist group] appeared in the West’s vocabulary two years ago. We have been speaking about it for years. A terrorist evil was maturing there under the disguise of democratic transformations and peaceful opposition that was really present there. Now we have a common global problem embodied by the terrorist threat and an absolute inability of the Western world led by Washington to counter it," she underscored.