MOSCOW, July 25. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin urged the League of Arab States (LAS) on Monday to fight against terrorism along the efforts for the political settlement in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and other hotbeds of tension.
"Russia is ready to strengthen in every possible way its interaction with the Arab League in ensuring regional security, first of all, in the struggle against the threat of international terrorism," Putin said in his address to the heads of state and governments of LAS member countries.
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"We proceed from the fact that the efforts to confront this evil should be combined with the joint efforts aimed at the political settlement of the crisis situations in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and other hotbeds of tension with reliance on the respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all the countries by way of an inclusive dialog and the search for national accord," Putin said.
Moscow also intends to continue providing all possible assistance to the solution of the Palestinian problem, "acting both via bilateral channels and in various multilateral formats," the Russian president said.
"We consider the current status quo as unacceptable and stand for creating conditions for the quickest reset of the negotiation process that will be aimed at establishing an independent, viable, territorially integral Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem, peacefully co-existing with its neighbors," Putin said.
The agenda of the summit of the LAS heads of state and governments includes many issues, the Russian president said.
"This, of course, is linked with the fact that many of the problems, with which the region of the Middle East and North Africa is confronted, have seriously exacerbated lately," Putin said.
"We can see the weakening of state institutions in a whole number of countries, the aggravation of social and economic difficulties, the escalation of extremism and religious intolerance. All this makes ever more in demand the constructive role of the League of Arab States as an important mechanism of a multilateral dialog and collective decision-making," the Russian president said.
The build-up of Russia’s partner relations with the LAS in the spirit of the decisions made at the February session of the Russian-Arab Cooperation Forum in Moscow will become an important factor of ensuring international stability, Putin said.
The LAS summit is beginning its work on Monday in the capital of Mauritania, Nouakchott. The agenda of the 27th LAS summit that will last two days includes the issues of finding the ways for settling the acutest conflicts in the region, first of all, in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Yemen.
The LAS summit will also focus on studying the prospects of forming common regional armed forces for jointly fighting security threats. The relevant agreement was reached at the previous LAS summit in March 2015 but has not been implemented to date, despite the efforts of some of the organization’s members.
The LAS leaders will consider the current situation in the area of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the relations with Iran, the issues of maintaining pan-Arab security, the fight against terrorism and extremism and the prospects of LAS economic cooperation.