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Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's opening remarks at a meeting with Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of the Syrian Arab Republic Faisal Mekdad, Moscow, March 15, 2023

15 March 2023 13:28
476-15-03-2023

I am happy to see you.

I think that our presidents' meeting today is well-timed. There are issues we need to discuss regarding the implementation of the agreements reached at our previous meetings.

Apart from bilateral cooperation, regional and international subjects stand at the top of our agenda. We see that the situation in the region is changing, primarily in terms of the restoration of Syria's rights in the Arab League. We will continue to support this positive trend and other positive sentiments in the Arab world during the next ministerial meeting of the Arab League countries and Russia, which we intend to organise in the next few months.

You are aware of the initiatives for collective security in the Persian Gulf and the region around this key area, which we have been promoting for years with the support of our Syrian friends and other Arab countries. The agreements on the normalisation of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, reached with the support of our Chinese friends, are a major achievement in this context.

I believe that this is also creating favourable conditions for promoting a political settlement in Syria. We will work towards fair agreements based on UN Security Council Resolution 2254, which provides for restoring the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic and the elimination of the terrorist threat. We are actively cooperating with you in all these areas.

There are many other drawn-out conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa, first of all, the Palestinian problem. The so-called Middle East settlement is not just marking time but is rolling back from the principles approved at the UN Security Council and General Assembly and formulated in the Arab Peace Initiative.

The actions taken by Russia and Syria, just like the overwhelming majority of the other UN member states, in the interests of implementing the relevant decisions of the UN Security Council and General Assembly are part of our broader joint efforts to protect the fundamental principles of the United Nations. This is also the goal of the Group of Friends in Defence of the UN Charter, which was recently established with the participation of Russia and the Syrian Arab Republic. The Group is rallying the supporters of international law as a counterbalance to the group of Western countries that reject international law and are promoting the idea of a world based on the "rules" they themselves have invented.

We have a busy agenda. I am confident that our preliminary meetings and, of course, the talks to be held in the Kremlin will advance our bilateral strategic partnership to a new level.