Russia-Turkey Relations Depend on Cooperation on Syria: Lavrov

MOSCOW – The development of relations between Russia and Turkey will depend on their cooperation on Syria and on whether Turkey will take steps against those who use this country’s territory to finance terrorists in Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday, Itar Tass reported.

“We presented a lot of evidence that indicates that Turkey’s territory is widely used to finance terrorists and redeploy gunmen to Syria,” the minister told a national educational youth forum.

  “Now that we have resumed our relations, it will be difficult to ignore the fact that our Turkish partners will have to answer these questions now, and not only answer, but also take steps, as they used their territory to support this war.”

He noted that Turkey’s neighbors “realize that cooperation should be increasingly more based on trust and candor.”

“All the more so because the situation in Syria has changed over the past few months, and conditions are being created for defeating terrorists and launching a genuine intra-Syrian dialogue,” the minister said.

West Middle East Policy responsible for tragic developments in the region

According to Lavrov, the West’s incompetent policy in the Middle East and North Africa has led to the current consequences in the region, referring to the tragic events resulted from the western countries’ interference in Iraq, Libya and  Syria, particularly the rise of ISIS in the region.

He pointed out that when the Libyan government  was removed, Libya was turned into a hotbed of terrorism threatening Africa.

The Russian foreign minister cited the American proverb: “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.”

“Iraq was not broken, Libya was not broken, Syria was not broken,” Lavrov said.

 ‘They started to fix it and they have got what is happening there now,” the Russian foreign minister said.

The minister added that destroying ethno-confessional balance in Syria will be disgraceful.

Events in Syria seeks destroying religious coexistence in the country

The Middle East is the place “where three world religions – Islam, Judaism and Christianity – have co-existed for thousands of years,” he said.

“What is happening in Syria now threatens to destroy the ethno-confessional balance which has been preserved despite deadly wars,” Lavrov said.

“If we witness the disruption of this balance in our epoch, it would be a disgrace for all of us,” he added.

H.M