Lavrov: The need to eliminate the remaining hotbeds of terrorism in Syria

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has stressed the need to eliminate the remaining hotbeds of terrorism in Syria and work for the reconstruction and return of the displaced Syrians to their country.

“ The priority is to  finish terrorism in Syria and create  conditions  to the return of the displaced, which needs to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure,” Lavrov said during a press conference on February 18 for the  ministers of foreign and defense of Russia and Italy at the conclusion of talks in the form of (2 plus 2) in which Lavrov and his Italian counterpart Luigi de Mayo and the Russian defense ministers Sergei Shoigu and Italian Lorenzo Guerrini participated in Rome.

For his part, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stressed that the Syrian government now controls 90 percent of its territory and that several terrorist hotspots remain in Idlib, which must be eliminated.

Shoigu stressed the need to cancel the coercive economic measures imposed on Syria, especially those that prevent the supply of energy and pointed out that the United States controls oil wells and plundering the wealth of the Syrian people.

For his part, the Italian Foreign Minister affirmed that the European Union is moving on the Libyan track based on an international mandate it has obtained, which concerns the ban on exporting weapons only and not related to other decisions adopted on Libya.

O. al-Mohammad