Lavrov calls for including Syria in Friends of Syria group

MOSCOW, (ST)_ Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday said Syria itself should be included in the Friends of Syria group.

Established in 2012, the group comprises Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

“I suggest that the Friends of Syria group should after all include Syria itself as the government of (Syrian President) Bashar al-Assad is facing the threat of terrorism,” Lavrov said.

 “This negates previous decisions and UN Security Council documents that terrorism cannot be justified,” he said, adding he was hoping that Western politicians were realizing the rapidly growing threat of terrorism.

Lavrov said the West would soon have “to make a choice” and decide what was more important – to change the regime or to find pragmatic ways to join efforts for fighting the threat of terrorism. “We favor the second way,” he said.

A joint fight against global terrorism was one of our proposals. Our partners agreed on it, but when it came to action they did the opposite. They offered support to all the groups that opposed governments in the countries where the Arab Spring was happening”, said Russian FM Sergei Lavrov during today’s briefing, APA’s Moscow correspondent reported.

According to him, terrorist groups that are fighting against governments in the countries where the Arab Spring is happening have now become the target of the West: “Our western partners did it in Libya and other North African countries, in Syria, and Iraq. Those terrorist groups eventually acted against western countries themselves. We saw it in Mali, now we’re seeing it in Syria and Iraq. ISIS was supported by the West as it was fighting against Bashar Assad. But when ISIS acted against U.S. interests in Iraq and targeted Baghdad, it was declared terrorist organization by the West. When they saw that ISIS posed a threat to U.S. projects in Iraq, then they decided to take actions against it”.

Sergei Lavrov also said that ISIS is already out of control.

Source: ITAR-TASS/ APA

M. Wassouf