British lawmaker says Western attempts to resolve Syrian crisis fail

LONDON, August 17. /TASS/. The West needs to cooperate with Russia to resolve the crisis in Syria and defeat radicalism in the Middle East, Daniel Kawczynski, a member of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, has told TASS.

"The situation in Syria continues to be extremely difficult and there have been numerous criticisms of Russian policy in that country, but Western attempts at resolving this conundrum have equally failed," he said. "We need to get back to ensuring that decisions like Syria are ultimately debated effectively within the United Nations and in particular the UN Security Council with us trying to engage with the Russians at an attempt to bring peace back to that country."

"Can we really expect to defeat radicalism in the Middle East and the ongoing strife in Syria and Libya without the effective understanding and co-operation of our fellow member of the UN Security Council? I have heard of one European senior politician claiming that Russia poses a greater threat to us than ISIS (former name of the Islamic State terrorist group banned in Russia - TASS). It is with regret that sort of misinformation and wrongly placed suspicion which does a great deal of harm in attempts by others to ensure that we start to trust one another more and work to defeat terrorism," the lawmaker pointed out.

Kawczynski added that "US Secretary of State John Kerry has shown a real willingness and leadership in engaging with his counterpart Mr Lavrov to attempt resolution of this problem." "I urge our own Foreign Office to take a leaf out of his book and try to emulate that co-operation with the Russians over Syria," the politician said.