Lavrov is frustrated by meetings with the United States about Syria
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia is frustrated with the progress of the meetings with the United States about Syria in Geneva. According to him, there have been results, but everything is being hampered by the inability to distinguish the terrorists from the opposition. This was said by the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry on air with the Russian television station Russia 24, RIA Novosti reports.
“The meetings are producing results, but everything is held back by the very same problem: that the Americans were unable to fulfill our agreement with them, namely the dissociation of the so-called moderate opposition from Jabhat al-Nusra,” Lavrov noted.
According to him, it seems that “there is a dominating desire to preserve Jabhat al-Nusra as the most viable force” opposing the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. At the same time, Lavrov stressed, the group is included on all terrorist lists from the United States, Russia and the UN.
“But, nevertheless, we will try to find some way out of this situation. Secretary of State John Kerry, in my opinion, is genuinely interested in this,” the minister concluded.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said the meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, which was held on the margins of the APEC summit, was constructive, TASS reports. “The meeting was constructive, an important conversation. We’ve discussed a number of topics – Yemen, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and bilateral relations,” Kerry said.
This was the first meeting between Lavrov and Kerry since October 15. Their conversation lasted just over an hour.