Nusra Front Terrorists Are Major Obstacle to Reaching “Ceasefire” in Syria: Lavrov

MOSCOW- Amid the worsening situation in Eastern Ghouta, the suburb of the Syrian capital of Damascus, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the Nusra Front terrorists are the major obstacle to reaching a “ceasefire” in Syria, adding that there’s no guarantee that militants will adhere to the cessation of hostilities.

The international coalition doesn’t seem to fight against the Nusra Front terrorist group in Syria, Lavrov said on Friday following the meeting with his Uzbek counterpart Abdulaziz Kamilov, according to Sputnik.

 “The Nusra Front is not being targeted. We still have no evidence that the US-led coalition considers the Nusra front as a target for its military campaign,” Lavrov said at a news conference in Moscow.

Civilians are used by terrorists as human shields

The foreign minister went on to underscore that the terrorists use civilians in East Ghouta as human shields in order to put the blame for possible casualties on the Syrian government and its allies, and presenting them as parties that violate international humanitarian laws.

“A lot of questions arise on how the media campaign seeking to accuse Damascus and its allies in an anti-terror fight of violating an international humanitarian law is being conducted,” the minister stressed, adding that mainstream media use the information about alleged humanitarian law violations that has been presented by the White Helmets, a group created with the help of US and UK governments.

Lavrov has also reminded that White Helmets have repeatedly been caught falsifying information.

The Nusra Front has repeatedly launched attacks on Damascus from Eastern Ghouta, including several against Russia’s embassy and trade mission in the Syrian capital.

UN Resolution on Humanitarian Pause in East Ghouta

A proposed UN Security Council’s resolution on Syria’s ceasefire doesn’t guarantee that the terrorists will lay down the weapons; at the same time, Moscow is ready to back the proposal, he pointed out.

“In order to make this resolution effective — and we are ready to agree on a document that will be such — we propose a formula that will make the ceasefire real and based on the guarantees of the parties that are currently residing in East Ghouta; the guarantees should be backed by the external powers, including those who have influence over the extremist groups that entrenched themselves in the Damascus suburbs.

US Struggling to Create Qausi State East in Syria

Sergei Lavrov also said that the Astana process, a series of negotiations on the crisis in Syria in the Kazakh capital, remains the only barrier that prevents the United States from dividing Syria.

“These plans, even though they are denied by the US side, are being implemented already,” Lavrov said. “As we have already said, huge territories to the east of the Euphrates river, are being mastered by the Americans, who are engaging in the geopolitical engineering there and creating quasi-state structures.”

Four Syrian de-escalation zones were created during the Astana talks on Syrian reconciliation, including the one in Eastern Ghouta. Russia, Iran and Turkey serve as guarantors of the de-escalation agreements, which do not apply to militants linked to the al-Qaeda terrorist group.

H.M