‘Fight against terror must not be held hostage to future of Assad’
December 19, 2015, 7:15 am

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the Syria Support Group meet in New York on 18 December 2015 [Xinhua]

“I would like to make only one comment in this connection: we hear our colleagues say let’s start political process so that those who want to oust [Syrian President Bashar] Assad get such hope, then we will be able to coordinate the fight against terrorism with you,” Lavrov said.

“It’s sad that we are again making our common task – termination of terror – hostage to the future of one person,” he added.

“Only the Syrians will decide their own future. That also covers the future of the Syrian president,” Lavrov said arguing that there should be no further attempts at “regime-change” in Syria after the proposed elections.

Lavrov reiterated Russia’s proposal to coordinate anti-terror strikes in Syria with the US is still open.

“I can confirm that regarding coordination of strikes, such our proposal has remained on the table for two and a half months,” he said at a joint news conference with US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Lavrov was responding to statements by Kerry that 80 per cent of the ongoing Russian airstrikes in Syria was aimed at weakening the rebel groups fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.

A UN Security Council resolution adopted unanimously on Friday said new elections must be held within 18 months of the beginning of political talks.

The Russian Foreign Minister said that process will begin sometime in January at the earliest.

“Not only the Vienna documents, not only the resolution of the Security Council, but the Geneva Communique, which was also confirmed by the resolution, contain the concept of national unity through establishment of a governing body on the basis of mutual consent of the government and the entire range of opposition,” he said.

“This concept has never been denied by anyone, it underlies our entire work, it has been developed and detailed in Vienna’s decisions,” Lavrov said.

Moscow has said the efforts of the UN in Syria must be aimed at creating “credible, inclusive, non-sectarian governance.”

“We believe it is possible try to reach such an agreement within six months, then there will be development of a new constitution – general recommendations – on the basis of which elections will be held,” Lavrov said.

“We believe it is possible to limit the entire political process to 18 months approximately,” he said.

Lavrov also said that the list of terrorist organizations operating in Syria compiled by Jordan is “contradictory” as it does not include groups that shelled Russia’s embassy in Damascus.

“We agreed on criteria, so that clearly terrorist groups could be added to the Islamic State (banned in Russia) and Jabhat al-Nusra,” Lavrov said. “For us, for example, such criteria are regular shelling of residential quarters and regular shelling of Russia’s embassy in Damascus.”

TBP and Agencies