Moscow does not rule out unilateral steps against gunmen violating cessation of hostilities

Moscow – Moscow believes that procrastinating indefinitely the drafting of the common stance on the cessation of hostilities in Syria is “dangerous and counterproductive” and does not rule out stopping such actions unilaterally, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

“We are still interested in devising the procedure of our response to cessation of hostilities violations coordinated with the US and other members of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) on the basis of the decisions taken at the ISSG plenary meeting in Munich,” the ministry said according to Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).

“From the very beginning, Moscow has been aware of the difficulties in implementing the joint Russian-US agreement,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said. “To that end, we offered our American partners to create the appropriate joint mechanism, which would provide for exchanging information and registering violations with the subsequent punishment of those responsible for such violations.”

“We have been in contact with the Americans for quite a while,” the ministry said. “However, so far, these contacts have not taken us close enough to procedures of identifying and stopping all cessation of hostilities violations coordinated by Russia and the U.S. as ISSG co-chairs. We are convinced that thereby a wrong signal is sent to the opposition members who did not join the cessation of hostilities agreement and not dissociate themselves from well-known terrorist groups properly.”