MOSCOW, February 10. /TASS/. The number of countries supporting Moscow’s initiative to create an anti-terrorism front has been growing, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
"We continue to develop cooperation with other countries in the war on terror. The number of countries supporting your initiative to create an anti-terrorism front has been growing. In the end, this is what really matters," the Russian top diplomat said.
In 2015, while addressing the United Nations General Assembly, Russian leader Vladimir Putin put forward an initiative to create a united anti-terrorism front. The Russian president’s plan stipulated that all the regional states would join the anti-IS coalition, first and foremost, those that had been fighting against terrorists on the ground, that is, Syria and Iraq, as well as the Kurds. The plan also envisaged requesting the UN Security Council to endorse the coalition.
"If we join our efforts in these directions, then we will achieve positive results but if everyone continues to act on their own, if we continue to argue with each other over the so-called democratic principles and proceedings on some territories, then we will remain deadlocked," Putin said addressing the UN General Assembly.
Lavrov later told reporters that many countries had expressed interest in the Russian president’s initiative "to create a broad anti-terrorism front based on international law and the United Nations Charter, that would act with the consent of the countries of the region and in close cooperation with them, as they have been carrying the main burden of the war on terror."