Lavrov Says His Talks with Trump Focused on Political Settlement, De-Escalation Zones in Syria

WASHINGTON- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a press conference in the Russian embassy in Washington DC following his meeting with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday, May 10.

Lavrov said he had discussed bilateral cooperation between the US and Russia with US President Trump and State Secretary Tillerson. He said that Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have also been discussed, according to Sputnik.

 “There is a desire to move into the direction of settlement of all these problems… Both President Trump and President Putin are willing to attain concrete results that would help removing problems from the international agenda,” Lavrov said.

“In the recent telephone conversation the presidents confirmed that they’re going to meet on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg at the beginning of July,” Lavrov stated. “They are going to see each other in July.”

Syria de-escalation zones

 Lavrov said that the US and Russian sides agreed that international issues should be solved jointly. The Syrian settlement and the Russia-sponsored plan to create Syrian safe zones were discussed, he said. The US and Russia agreed to continue working in the framework of Astana and Geneva talks between Damascus and Syrian “opposition”.

Russia and the US reached a conceptual agreement on geographical aspects of the de-escalations zones in Syria, Lavrov said.

“Today we have discussed the specific ways to jointly implement these agreements,” Lavrov stated, referring to the de-escalation zones in Syria. “We hope that the frameworks within which this process is evolving will be acceptable to all parties.”

Lavrov added, “We certainly welcome US cooperation on the matter and hope that it will help move forward political settlement in Syria.”

“We agree with Trump that the most important thing to do in Syria is to fight against terrorism,” he said.

When asked if Russia has an “exit strategy,” Lavrov said that there’s no such thing and all sides must comply with their obligations.

Representatives of the countries-guarantors of the truce in Syria (Russia, Iran, Turkey) signed on May 4 a memorandum on the creation of four zones of de-escalation in Syria, which include the province of Idlib and seven other regions. According to the memorandum, any clashes between the government forces and “opposition” armed groups must stop within the zones.

The memorandum on these de-escalation zones took effect on May 6.

H.M