MOSCOW, July 7. /TASS/. Humanitarian assistance to Syrians was in focus of a telephone conversation between Russian and German Foreign Ministers, Sergey Lavrov and Heiko Maas, the Russian foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
"The sides discussed issues of the current Middle East agenda with a focus on the situation in and around Syria," the ministry said. "The two top diplomats discussed key issues of humanitarian assistance to all Syrians in the entire country, without politicization, discrimination and preliminary conditions."
"The ministers exchanged views on the United Nations Security Council debates about the prospects of the cross-border humanitarian assistance mechanism in Syria," it added.
The Russian foreign minister drew attention of his German counterpart to the fact that all humanitarian operations should be agreed with Damascus. He also pointed to the negative impacts of the European Union’s and the United States’ anti-Syrian sanctions that are still in place despite UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ calls.
"The two ministers shared the opinion that there is no alternative to United Nations-brokered political settlement of the Syrian crisis conducted by Syrians on the basis of commitment to the country’s sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity on the basis of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254," the ministry said, adding that Lavrov and Maas also discussed relations between Russia and the European Union in the light of Germany’s presidency in the European Union, and a schedule of further contacts.