Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that he believed much of the work regarding de-escalation in southern Syria would be completed in the immediate future, speaking alongside his Sierra Leonean counterpart Samura Kamara in Moscow, Friday.
“We are currently working out the details in regards to how it is going to function, in order to ensure the control and monitoring of the ceasefire regime between the governmental forces and the armed opposition,” said Lavrov, “in order to allow for unrestricted humanitarian access and the flow of civilians from that zone and into that zone, I believe that work will be completed in the immediate future.”
SOT, Sergei Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister (Russian): “[CIA head Michael Pompeo] said that Russia and the United States have different goals in Syria, and then he elaborated saying that Russia has an objective to get an non-freezing port in the Mediterranean, it’s good that they reiterated that the port is non-freezing. I read that the US has ten bases in Syria. It turns out that Mr. Pompeo wants the same as we have in Syria, only several times more. And another thing is that we don’t hide our two bases in Syria from anyone. They are functioning on the basis of an intergovernmental agreement with the Syrian government. Their task is to assist in the fight against terrorists, which are still in great numbers.”
SOT, Sergei Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister (Russian): “We are currently working out the details in regards to how it is going to function, in order to ensure the control and monitoring of the ceasefire regime between the governmental forces and the armed opposition and in order to allow for unrestricted humanitarian access and the flow of civilians from that zone and into that zone, I believe that work will be completed in the immediate future.”
SOT, Sergei Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister (Russian): “Well if the statement means that we have been interfering since 2008 and 2012, then it means that President Barack Obama also owes us his victories. I will make no comment here, it goes beyond reason.”
SOT, Sergei Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister (Russian): “We have very good cooperation on the UN track, where African states play an increasingly important role on the key directions of the UN, and we support this tendency. Sierra Leon is currently presiding over the committee of ten of the Africa Union which has been created to promote the positions of the countries of the continent, in regards to reforms to the Security Council, we have assessed that problem, we share a common view that one of the priorities of reform should be the expansion of representation in the Security Council, the key body for security and peace in developing countries, including Africa.”