Lavrov: Crisis in Syria Given Political Settlement Opportunity by Russian-Chinese UNSC Veto

MOSCOW- A chance for political settlement of the crisis in Syria has emerged and the country will not turn into a second Libya, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday, according to Itar Tass.

“The veto right in the UN Security Council is not a privilege but a great responsibility,” Lavrov told an international student conference “UN model.” “Thanks to the veto, we will be able to say that a chance of switching to political settlement in the Syrian crisis has emerged,” he said.

Lavrov stressed that Russia is against using the theme of human rights for excusing intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign states.

“At times the human rights theme is used to excuse actions that fail to meet with the obligation not to intervene in the internal affairs of other states,” he said. “By tradition we are against the politicization of human rights, as well as against the selection of two or three countries for permanent lynching with the use of resolutions.”

According to the minister, some of Russia’s Western partners in the United Nations cannot quit the habit of imposing their dominance on the international arena.

“International relations have entered a critical stage of development,” Lavrov said at Moscow International Model United Nations student conference.

“This is linked to an objective process of forming a new and more polycentric and democratic system of international relations that should reflect a geographic and civilizational variety of the modern world, or in other words, a body that pretends to play the role of global management and that should reflect the world in which this body exists,” he said.

Lavrov noted that this process “is developing in an uneasy way and is facing obstacles, including those on the path of the nations towards defining their future themselves.”

“Some partners cannot get rid of a habit of attempting to preserve their dominance on the international arena at any costs and to impose their opinion and will on other participants of the international dialogue,” Lavrov said.

“The need for cooperation and joint efforts on counting real threats are being sacrificed,” the minister said. “Such policy that puts one’s own image ahead of the fight against real threats is leading towards the growing chaos in international relations and the increasing hotbeds of instability,” he said.

Itar Tass

H.M