No talks with terrorists in Syria – Lavrov

Any talks are out of place with terrorists in Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with weekly program Segodnya (Today) on TV channel NTV on Sunday.

“We refuse to have talks and do not recommend other parties to hold talks with them over principled considerations,” Lavrovsaid, according to Voice of Russia.

“This is not only our concerns that extremists and terrorists call the tune increasingly in different Syrian regions, but this is also the position of all Group of Eight states,” he added.

Lavrov pointed to the G8 summit in Ireland’s Loch Erne in June 2013 where then G8 chair and UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron together with Russian President Vladimir Putin backed the call on the rivalling Syrian groups to join their forces and root out terrorism in the country.

“This goal is becoming more of a priority one considering the growing terrorist threat inside Syria, which is already spilling over into Iraq,” the Russian foreign policy vet said. He added the neighboring Iraq was now swarming with radicals from the group that calls itself the “Islamic state of Iraq and Levant”.

Sergei Lavrov said the situation in Syria and on its borders called for a soonest compromise between the government and “adequate, secular and patriotic opposition” in order for them to unite against the escalating terrorist threat.

The Russian foreign chief said it was hard to imagine any of the three rebel umbrella organizations – “the Islamic Front, al-Nusra and the Islamic state of Iraq” –as viable partners in peace talks because they acted essentially as communicating vessels, with” insurgents” moving freely between the three in search of a better pay.

M.Daoud