Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has emphasized Russia’s red line with regards to terrorism, saying that “a dialog with terrorist groups fighting in Syria will not be held under any circumstance”. Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani backed up Russia’s position in an interview on CNN, saying that “the first step for solving the crisis in Syria lies in expelling terrorists”. Meanwhile, UN/AL envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi has held talks with both the Syrian government’s and the foreign-backed opposition and indicates that talks continue in Geneva on Monday. In February 2013 a US veto to a Russian sponsored UN Security Council resolution, condemning all forms of terrorism, regardless by whom and under which circumstances they are being committed, threw the two partners for peace into a state of diplomatic deep freeze. Russia drafted the resolution, following a devastating terrorist attack in Damascus, and Lavrov responded to the US veto by blasting the US administration for double standards. On Sunday, in Geneva, the Russian Foreign Minister underlined Russia’s red line with regards to terrorism, saying:
Tag: Syria
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The Montreux-to-Geneva peace conference is underway, and although the mainstream media is focusing on the negatives—namely, the fact that the invitation to Iran was blocked by the United States, and the confrontational exchange…
The media spin machine is again kicking into high gear, perfectly timed to accompany the “Geneva II” Syria peace talks. The lies are necessary to give the Obama administration an upper hand in the peace negotiations, which are not being used to pursue peace, but instead, to accomplish the Obama administration’s longstanding goal of Syrian regime change. Here are the top three Western media lies about the Syrian peace talks. 1) The removal of Syrian Bashar al-Assad was an agreed upon “precondition” for the Geneva II peace talks. This lie has been repeated over and over by government and media alike. It has zero basis. The Obama administration claims that this precondition was expressed in the “Geneva communiqué,” which was a road map agreement meant to guide the Geneva II peace talks, agreed upon by some of the major parties of the negotiations, including Russia. The communiqué does indeed call for a negotiated political transition, but nowhere does it state that such a transition cannot include President Assad. Such a condition would have been outright rejected by Russia.
A five-minute audio message by al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri went viral on the internet in which he enjoins the rebels in Syria to end their infighting and focus their energies on battling against President Bashar…
Today, in this gathering of Arab and Western powers, we are presented with a simple choice: we can choose to fight terrorism and extremism together and to start a new political process, or you can continue to support terrorism in Syria. Let us reject and isolate the black hands and the false faces, which publicly smile but covertly feed terrorist ideology, striking Syria today, but ultimately spreading to infect us all. This is the moment of truth and destiny; let us rise to the challenge. Syria Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, who headed his country’s official delegation to Geneva II, called at the opening session of the conference on a collective confrontation against terrorism and on starting a national dialogue in Damascus, SANA reported. Ladies and Gentlemen, On behalf of the Syrian Arab Republic, SYRIAN – steeped in history for seven thousand years. ARAB – proud of its steadfast pan-Arab heritage despite the deliberate acts of aggression of supposed brotherly Arabs. REPUBLIC – a civil state that some, sitting in this room, have tried to return to medieval times. Never have I been in a more difficult position; my delegation and I carry the weight of three years of hardship endured by my fellow countrymen – the blood of our martyrs, the tears of our bereaved, the anguish of families waiting for news of a loved one – kidnapped or missing, the cries of our children whose tender fingers were the targets of mortar shelling into their classrooms, the hopes of an entire generation destroyed before their very eyes, the courage of mothers and fathers who have sent all their sons to defend our country, the heartbreak of families whose homes have been destroyed and are now displaced or refugees.
Update: Further details have emerged regarding the authors of the report. It was produced by British law firm Carter-Ruck on behalf of Qatar who funded it (CNN). Carter-Ruck had in the past defended Saudis suspected…
Beirut – A long-awaited peace conference on Syria is likely to go ahead without one of the major participants of the conflict after the United Nations withdrew an invitation to Iran to attend the talks…
Unquestionably, there would be no Geneva-II conference on Syria had it not been for Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s brilliant tactical strategy of offering up a positive proposal from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that Syria would turn over to the West all of his country’s chemical weapons in order to avoid a Western military attack. Kerry laid down his chemical weapons stipulation at a September 2013 joint press conference in London with British Foreign Secretary William Hague. In answer to a reporter’s question about what Assad could do or offer in order to stop an attack from the United States and other NATO forces, Kerry responded, “Umm… sure, he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week. Turn it over! All of them… without delay and allow a full and total accounting for that. But he isn’t about to do it and it can’t be done, obviously.”
The fundamental issue is to address the nature of the conflict. ‘Is this a civil war between opposing factions within Syrian society or is it in fact a war of aggression?’ I think at the…