Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s opening remark during talks with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of the Syrian Arab Republic Walid Muallem, Moscow, October 28, 2016

Mr Minister,

Friends,

Welcome to Moscow.

We are happy to meet with you once again, and even more so given that we have to maintain regular contacts due to the situation in and around Syria so as to ensure strict compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 2254. By adopting this resolution, the international community has set forth the approaches regarding the settlement of the crisis in Syria, primarily by stressing the importance of launching an intra-Syrian dialogue as soon as possible without any preconditions, which will enable Syrians to decide on the future of their country without outside interference.

Naturally, humanitarian issues must also be addressed. Action is needed to ensure the cessation of hostilities, with the exception of ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and other terrorist groups. We strongly believe that there is no alternative to stepping up efforts to combat terrorists. Otherwise, we may lose the fight not only in Syria, but also in the Middle East and North Africa.

As some of our partners try to distort the meaning of UN Security Council resolutions and shift the focus from the fight against terrorism to some other objectives, while in fact acting as enablers for extremists by refraining from putting an end to their criminal activities, we need to coordinate our efforts very closely. Many share our vision. I am confident that we will be able to work out constructive proposals during this meeting and the subsequent meeting with our Iranian colleague.

Of course, we will also discuss bilateral ties. It is not easy to promote trade, economic and humanitarian cooperation as the war ravages Syria. Nevertheless, we are doing and will be doing all it takes to support the people of Syria in this challenging period, and even more so given that Syria faces economic sanctions that affect civilians, and even stricter sanctions could be introduced in the future.

Once again, welcome to Russia.