Islamic State expansion is key challenge to global security — Russian top diplomat

Russian Politics & Diplomacy April 28, 2016, 9:38

"No one in the world will feel safe" until this challenge is neutralized, the Russian foreign minister said

BEIJING, April 28. /TASS/. The Islamic State terrorist group embodies an unprecedented big threat, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday at a ministerial meeting of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA).

"The situation in the Middle East has come to the verge of a collapse of the political map of the region," he said. "It is another vivid evidence of the ruinous nature of the course towards ‘democracy export’ and provoked from outside change of unwanted regimes by means of force, including by speculating on the religious factor and provoking a split in the Moslem world."

"The expanding space of chaos in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen has triggered an unprecedented big terrorist threat embodied in the so-called Islamic State," Lavrov underscored. "Islamic State expansion is a key challenge to international stability."

"No one in the world will feel safe" until this challenge is neutralized, he said.

Russia calls not to divide terrorists into ‘moderate’ and ‘radical’

The minister also stressed that counter-terrorism efforts cannot be efficient as long as terrorist are divided into ‘moderate’ and ‘radical.'

"Russia is firmly committed to the fight against terrorism in all of its forms and manifestations," he said. "We are confident that this global evil cannot be defeated single-handedly."

"Notably, it will be impossible to counter terrorists efficiently as long as they are divided into ‘moderate’ and ‘radical,’ the more so as when trying to manipulate extremist groups to achieve individual political goals," he stressed.

"Special attention is to be paid to efforts towards neutralizing foreign terrorists, blocking terrorism financing through illegal tade in drugs, natural resources and objects of cultural heritage," Lavrov said. "We stand for using the existing multilateral mechanisms to exert pressure on those states that are ignoring the legally binding resolutions of the United Nations Security Council on blocking channels of financial and other support to Islamic State."

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