Russia’s UN envoy calls situation in Middle East catastrophic

THE UNITED NATIONS, July 23. /TASS/. The situation in the Middle East and North Africa can be called catastrophic without exaggeration, Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said at the UN Security Council’s session, speaking about sanguinary conflicts that have gripped the region and an unprecedented growth of terrorist threats. "The situation in the Middle East and North Africa remain catastrophic, without exaggeration," Churkin said. "The region is torn by large-scale sanguinary conflicts - in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Libya - which, fuelling one another, create conditions for spilling the instability over to neighbouring countries in Africa, the Mediterranean region and Central Asia." Churkin said that certain nations "are teetering on the brink of losing their territorial integrity," while violent terror attacks "reverberate through one or another corner in the region, reaching even Europe." "First, invasion of Iraq and then external interference into the Syria conflict and flirting with armed opposition have led to emergence of a new threat - the ISIL [the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant - the former name of the Islamic State terrorist group - eds. TASS] which consolidating its positions in those two states, have actually launched their march around the planet," the Russian ambassador said. Churkin is confident that a growth of terrorist threats can be explained "not only by financial inflows from the ‘Caliphate’ and its accomplices but also by highly motivated and ideologically loaded militants." "Definitely, this problem has lots of dimensions," he said. "But we are certain that one of the key factors in this aspect is a lack of solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict that creates conditions and arguments for recruiting new staff members into terrorist structures." Russia’s UN envoy called for "the soonest resumption of the talks" between Israel and the Palestine government noting that "a condition for success of the talks should be both sides’ mandatory obligation to refrain from unilateral actions which determine the outcome of the final settlement" based on the creation of two independent states. "First of all, it refers to Israeli settlements in the occupied territories," Churkin said assuring that Russia would continue to assist so that the peace talks could be resumed - through bilateral channels and "on various international floors, first of all within the framework of the Middle East Quartet [comprising the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia]." Beside, Churkin dubbed as useful meetings within the framework of the UN international seminar on peace between Israelis and Palestinians held in Moscow earlier in July. Read more