MOSCOW, December 7. /TASS/. Geneva could remain a platform for international talks, including about Syria, if Russian diplomats aren’t subjected to discriminatory demands in terms of visas and flights that carry delegations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the Primakov Readings forum on Wednesday.

"The Swiss government should commit to paper legally binding guarantees that no problems will arise in terms of visa issuance or flights of airplanes with our delegations," he said. "They [the Swiss] told us that they can guarantee freedom of movement of our aircraft in Swiss airspace, but in order to get to Switzerland we need to traverse airspace over some other European countries. We told them it was their problem: ‘Reach an agreement with those countries if you want to keep Geneva as a venue for meetings of the Syrian Constitutional Committee.’"

According to Lavrov, logistical challenges arise from the fact that "Switzerland joined the anti-Russian sanctions, thereby completely and irrevocably undermining its neutral status." Switzerland "undermined its image as a neutral country, on the territory of which it was comfortable for everyone to get together and discuss Russian-US strategic issues, including the implementation of the START Treaty, it was comfortable to meet and hold Geneva discussions of Transcaucasian issues with the participation of Georgia, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and countries and organizations that help this process. It was also comfortable for the Syrian Constitutional Committee to meet there," the minister said.

In addition, he said, the Swiss at first even demanded that Russian diplomats "apply for visas in violation of the existing procedures for visa-free travel for holders of diplomatic passports." In the absence of these guarantees, Lavrov said, Russia brought to the attention of the UN that its representatives "are ready to have meetings at any other place where they can travel without being subjected to any additional discriminatory requirements."