Lavrov: Mideast situation keeps deteriorating due to Israel’s aggressive policies

The crisis in the Middle East keeps escalating as a result of Israel’s aggressive militaristic policies supported by the United States, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with the Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily.

“The situation in the Middle East continues to deteriorate,” he said. “All this directly results from Israel’s aggressive, militarist policies, coupled with Washington’s efforts to monopolize the mediation process while throwing the UN Security Council decisions under the bus, despite the fact that these documents were adopted by consensus.”

In his words, Israel’s desire to ensure its security at the expense of the security of others, while benefiting from the unwavering support it gets from the United States, leads nowhere and will affect the relations between the Islamic world and Israel for many years to come.

“Bringing the situation with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict back to normal is the only path to improving the situation across the Middle East, including in Lebanon,” Lavrov went on.

“Creating conditions for achieving a two-state solution would be the next step in terms of moving beyond the violent phase in this crisis,” Lavrov added. “We believe that in our efforts to achieve this goal we must enable countries within this region to take centre stage instead of those who are trying to impose their terms and conditions from overseas.”

In another context, Lavrov stressed that the situation in the battlefield in Ukraine indicates that a diplomatic settlement in Ukraine is still out of reach.

He added: “Washington and its followers are still obsessed with the idea of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia, and to reach this illusory goal, they are ready to do a lot.”

Lavrov considered that “the escalatory step was represented in launching missiles strikes deep inside our country, and all our warnings about the appropriate response to these unacceptable actions were ignored”. He pointed out that the Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his speech on November 21, clearly explained how Russia would respond to such steps, threatening all those responsible for causing damage to citizens and infrastructure in Russia that they would receive the punishment they deserved.

Lavrov continued: “No escalation by the enemy will force us to retreat from achieving the goals of the special military operation, and we are ready for any development of events, but we always prefer to resolve controversial issues through peaceful means”.

Souha Suleiman