Russia expects US to clarify position on Syria talks
Iran Press TV
Wed Jun 26, 2013 11:10PM GMT
Russia says it expects the United States to clarify its position against an international conference on Syria crisis.
"We expect more clarity from the meeting with (US Secretary of State) John Kerry about the US position regarding the joint Russia-US initiative to convene an international conference on Syria," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a press conference in Moscow on Wednesday, Xinhua reported.
"The Syrian leadership has confirmed its readiness to send a delegation to the conference in Geneva without any preconditions, whereas the opposition is divided. The National Coalition of Syria supported by our western partners refuses to attend the conference until (Syrian President) Bashar al-Assad steps down," Lavrov said, calling the situation "regrettable.”
On Tuesday, senior Russian and US diplomats along with UN-Arab League Special Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi held a meeting in Geneva to prepare a new international conference for Syria.
Lavrov said on Wednesday that the closed-door meeting failed to specify a date for the conference due to the unwillingness on the part of Syria's opposition to participate without preconditions.
However, on Tuesday, the United Nations said in a statement after the preparatory meeting that Kerry and Larvrov would meet next week to discuss the Syrian crisis.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said that Kerry and Lavrov would meet at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) conference in Brunei.
Geneva talks were initially supposed to be held in June, but were later postponed to July.
On Tuesday, Brahimi said that the situation in Syria was not getting better, adding that he did not expect the talks to take place until later in the summer.
The Syria crisis began in March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of soldiers and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.
The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals.
Damascus says the West and its regional allies, such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, are supporting the militants.
In an interview broadcast on Turkish television in April, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said that if the militants take power in Syria, they could destabilize the entire Middle East region for decades.
“If the unrest in Syria leads to the partitioning of the country, or if the terrorist forces take control… the situation will inevitably spill over into neighboring countries and create a domino effect throughout the Middle East and beyond,” he stated.
NT/AS
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