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Recognizing Russia as sponsor of terrorism part of anti-Russian campaign — diplomat

"If certain countries or the European Parliament want to find real terrorists, we suggest they look more closely at and consider more thoroughly what has recently happened in the Baltic and Black Seas rather than take part in a parade of dummy resolutions," Oleg Syromolotov stressed

MOSCOW, November 25. /TASS/. The European Parliament’s (EP) resolution on recognizing Russia as "a state sponsor of terrorism" is part of the anti-Russian campaign and does not represent the real situation, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov said on Friday.

"This unfriendly step is part of the West’s information and political campaign against our country and has nothing to do with the real situation in the area of combating international terrorism," he said. "Russia has always been a responsible participant in anti-terrorist activities."

"If certain countries or the European Parliament want to find real terrorists, we suggest they look more closely at and consider more thoroughly what has recently happened in the Baltic and Black Sea rather than take part in a parade of dummy resolutions," he stressed.

Russia has "repeatedly called on the world community to pool efforts in this sphere, including in the 1990s, when it was conducting a counterterrorist operation in the North Caucasus," he recalled. "But it was the West who sponsored the criminals who were active in our country back then. It received them, supplied them with weapons and munitions, concurrently feeding a propaganda campaign about alleged violation of human rights in our country."

He stressed that attempts at accusing Russia of "state terrorism" had begun long before the launch of the special military operation in Ukraine and predictably Kiev was the initiator of such rhetoric. Western nations, in his words, use such words to label their rivals in a bid to legitimize their unilateral restrictions, which run counter to the principle of sovereign equality.

The Russian senior diplomat noted that terrorism as a crime carried with it individual criminal responsibility. "It means that only specific individuals, not states, involved in terrorist activities can be the perpetrators and be punished under criminal law," he explained.

He stressed that Russia will not align itself with those who violate international law and will not recognize Ukraine as a terrorist state, despite the fact that during the special military operation the Kiev regime has been committing flagrant violations: terror attacks on civilian infrastructure, shelling attacks on dwelling quarters, extrajudicial executions of Russian prisoners of war.

"Otherwise, our assessment of the conduct of unfriendly states in categories of anti-terrorist efforts would be pseudo-symmetric and legally flawed, which would mean that we are taking the lead from our opponents, thoughtlessly copying their terminology, which we ourselves consistently criticize," Syromolotov emphasized. Bearing this in mind, we think that it would be wrong to follow somebody else’s unlawful policy".