Russia renders Iraq, Syria aid in fight against terrorists - Lavrov

OULU /Finland/, October 14. /TASS/. Russia is rendering military support to the governments of Syria and Iraq in the fight against terrorists, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday while commenting on Turkey’s statements that Moscow allegedly supplies weapons to Kurds in Syria. "We are rendering support in the fight against terrorism in the military-technical cooperation sphere to central governments of, in particular, Iraq and Syria," Lavrov said. "We have said more than once that when it is necessary to support the efforts of Iraqi Kurdistan in the fight against terrorism, we are doing that with consent of the Iraqi government," he said. Lavrov said he knows nothing of summoning of the Russian ambassador to the Turkish Foreign Ministry. "It probably happened when we were flying [to Finland]," he said. Russia’s Aerospace Forces started delivering pinpoint strikes at facilities of the Islamic State terrorist organization in Syria on September 30. The air group comprises over 50 aircraft and helicopters, including Sukhoi Su-24M, Su-25SM and state-of-the-art Su-34 aircraft. Dozens of terrorist facilities have been hit by Russian aircraft. On October 7, four missile ships of the Russian Navy’s Caspian Flotilla fired 26 Kalibr cruise missiles (NATO codename Sizzler) at militants’ facilities in Syria. On October 8, the Syrian army passed to a large-scale offensive. Russia’s Armed Forces act on a request from Syrian President Bashar Assad. The Russian Federation does not plan to take part in ground operations in Syria. According to UN statistics, fighting between Syrian government troops and militants has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced millions since its start in 2011. An international peace conference on Syria, dubbed Geneva-2, organized by Russia and the United States and designed to negotiate a solution to the Syrian crisis, held in January and February 2014, brought no particular progress. Read more