Lavrov: Fighting Terrorism in Iraq While Ignoring it in Syria Unacceptable

MOSCOW- Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, has affirmed that it is unacceptable to support terrorism fighting in Iraq and ignore it in Syria.

In a joint press conference with his Tunisian counterpart Monji Hamdi in Moscow on Tuesday, Lavrov said that the danger of terrorism should be confronted away from “double standard policies” and that there must be a general framework helping all parties combat terrorism and its repercussions.

“Terrorists in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Mali and other countries shouldn’t be allowed to achieve their goals. In addition efforts aiming at political solutions to crises must be supported in these countries,” Lavrov added, stressing that focus should be made on fighting extremists and controlling arms trafficking not on overthrowing regimes for well-known political purposes like what happened in Libya under the pretext of supporting “democracy”.

The Russian top diplomat clarified that “classifying extremists as good and bad is unacceptable,” because some parties are exploiting this issue for their own interests. He affirmed that it is also unacceptable to fight the ISIL terrorists in Iraq and refrain from cooperation with the Syrian government on fighting them in Syria.

Lavrov reiterated Moscow’s call for political, peaceful and diplomatic settlement to all conflicts and its keenness to find an effective way to confront the danger of international terrorism targeting the Middle East.

For his part, the Tunisian foreign minister asserted that the Russian and Tunisian stances are identical on the Middle East causes, particularly those connected with Syria, Iraq and Libya as well as the issue of combating terrorism.

“Terrorism is a regional and international plague, so fighting it should be a common action by all countries of the region in cooperation with the international community.” Hamdi said.

He pointed out that the Tunisian people reject extremism and terrorism and that the Tunisian government is completely ready to do its best in the area of confronting terrorism.

H. Mustafa