West Should Cooperate with Russia to Counter Terrorism Threat: French Lawmaker

MOSCOW— French lawmaker and member of France’s “Republicans Party”  Pierre Lellouche has affirmed that the West should cooperate with Russia as to counter the threat of terrorism.

Interviewed by Sputnik news, Lellouche said the West should not replay the Cold War with Russia, but instead build a strategic alliance with Moscow to counter the threats of international terrorism,  Jihadism, Salafism and work together on Syria and the Middle East.”

 “Russia and the West have “converging interests with respect to the terrorist threat in the Middle East,” Lellouche added.

Relations between Russia and the West deteriorated amid the 2014 crisis and subsequent conflict in Ukraine between the government in Kiev and autonomy seekers in the east of the country. Washington, Brussels and their allies have accused Moscow of meddling in the Ukrainian conflict and introduced several rounds of sanctions, the Russian agency clarified.

According to Lellouche, the western sanctions against Russia won’t help solve the Ukrainian crisis, because the solution depends on Kiev’s decision to stop adopting decentralization in power.

His remarks comes after the French Parliament has supported a decision calling for lifting the sanctions imposed on Russia, but the decision was rejected by the French government and members of the majority bloc in the parliament.

Hamda Mustafa