Russia stand for immediate cessation of outside interference in Syrian crisis - Lavrov

DOHA, August 3. /TASS/. Russia stands for immediate cessation of any outside interference into the Syrian crisis and calls on all the parties to the conflict to sit down at the negotiating table, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday. "We are seriously concerned about the ongoing crisis in Syria and the humanitarian catastrophe in that country," he said. "We demand that in line with the Geneva communiques any outside interference into the Syrian crisis be stopped and urge the Syrian parties to sit down at the negotiating table to reach agreements by exclusively peaceful, political means on the basis of mutual consent." "All problems are to be solved on the basis of general consent," Lavrov noted. "Many countries are taking efforts to promote the establishment of a broad dialogue involving the Syrian government and the entire spectrum of opposition forces." In such conditions however, he said, it was becoming apparent that the position upheld at the time of the Geneva conference in 2013 was wrong, since only once opposition group, namely the National Coalition, had been invited to the conference. "It became obvious very soon that the spectrum of opposition forces is much wider," Lavrov said. "And in order to resume the political process the opposition must consolidate its efforts towards a constructive dialogue with the regime, just what is written in the Geneva communique." The Russian foreign minister reminded that Moscow had hosted two meetings, where "the Russian side invited all opposition groups, both domestic and those active abroad." "The meetings yielded the Moscow platform that lays down the principles reflecting the Geneva’s communique’s goals of preserving Syria as a territorially integral state and securing Syria’s sovereignty, so that Syria is a secular state where the rights of all ethnic and religious minorities are protected by the law," Lavrov said. "Efforts towards this goal must be continued." Read more