West trying to ‘flirt’ with Islamic front in Syrian crisis – Lavrov to RT

West trying to ‘flirt’ with Islamic front in Syrian crisis – Lavrov to RT
Published time: December 24, 2013 19:31

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is worried that Western politicians are still trying to “flirt” with the Islamic front in Syria, although they are beginning to realize that overthrowing Assad’s regime would play into the hands of terrorists.

RT: Hello Mr. Lavrov, and welcome to RT. Thanks for joining us. Today in the studio we have journalists from RT English, RT Arabic, and RT Spanish. If my colleagues don’t mind, I will start. This year has been a landmark year for Russian diplomacy. What is your personal assessment of the arrangements on Syria and Iran? And what do you think are the prospects for the Geneva-2 talks?

Sergey Lavrov: These are very positive agreements, and I believe they were made possible by our joint efforts. This is further proof that initiatives can only be put into action by our joint and sincere efforts that ensure a balance of interests and are in line with international law. I wouldn’t go as far as to say we’ve made a breakthrough this year in terms of Syria and Iran. First, the agreements to destroy the Syrian chemical arsenal and to convene the Geneva-2 conference, as well as the first stage agreement on further steps to resolve the Iran nuclear issue, are the fruit of years-long efforts. At least when it comes to Syria, we’re talking about three years of Russia’s consistent efforts of defending international law. The same applies to the progress on Iran. For over three years we’d been seeking two things: first, to get all the parties to the talks to agree that eventually Iran should have a recognized right to develop its peaceful nuclear program and enrich uranium to make fuel for nuclear power plants, while making sure that this program has no military dimension and that it is subject to total control of the IAEA, and providing security of all the countries in the region, including Israel.

But it took a very long time for our Western partners to start reasoning this way, the way which is fair, comprehensive and takes into account the interests of the international community – Western countries, the region’s and Iran’s interests. It also strengthens the nuclear nonproliferation regime. So we have managed to reach this deal right at the end of the outgoing year. Another thing we have been advocating for years is the necessity to draw up some kind of a roadmap (the expression has become a buzzword now) since you can’t resolve a conflict overnight. So we suggested moving forward step by step on the basis of reciprocity, which means Iran is to meet the demands set by the IAEA and supported by the UN Security Council, and the international community, in its turn, starts easing sanctions on Iran. It is supposed to continue until Iran has fully complied with all the requirements and that is the moment when all the sanctions will be lifted. For a few years, we have been advocating these two things: the so-called “endgame” — and the procedure of the dialogue, as well as promoting a political settlement in Syria.

So this breakthrough – if it was, indeed, a breakthrough – was the result of Russia’s long-term efforts and patience. When the Arab Spring began, Russia was said to be on the wrong side of history, to have lost the Arab streetand the Middle East. Unfortunately, at the time our Western partners – and some of our partners in the region, by the way – weren’t looking for solutions that would help stabilize the situation and help the nations in the region to implement their right to a better life, but opted for information warfare tactics. I’m just stating the facts – that’s what was happening at that time, and up until the beginning of this year, but I admit that in the end our Western partners have come to important and wise decisions. So the breakthrough was the result of profound groundwork.

A digger arrives to remove the rubble following an airstrike in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on December 24, 2013. (AFP Photo / Fouad Hallak)

A digger arrives to remove the rubble following an airstrike in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on December 24, 2013. (AFP Photo / Fouad Hallak)

The second reservation about using the word ‘breakthrough’ has to do with the future. The decisions regarding Syria and Iran are far from being fully implemented. As for destroying Syria’s chemical stockpiles, everything is going according to plan, with minor deviations concerning the timeframe of the interim stages, though the reasons for that are objective rather than subjective. I am sure that the deadline for the complete destruction of Syria’s chemical arsenal, June 30, will be met.

As for Geneva-2, we still have a long way to go. We don’t know for sure that this conference will be successful. (We can talk about this in more detail later. I am sure you’ll have more question on this issue.) And as regards the Iranian nuclear program, we’ve only reached an agreement concerning the first phase. We have a detailed plan, and technical experts are currently working on a timeframe which very specifically describes all the steps that Iran and the international community will take reciprocally. But then we need to proceed to the second phase which also needs a detailed plan of mutual steps by both sides, until we reach a point which we may call final. So now we are at the intermediate stage. A lot has been done, but it’s still early to celebrate. There’s a lot of hard work ahead of us. So instead of celebrating we should be thinking how to bring these two extremely important processes to completion.

RT: Let’s stay on Syria and countries which have had Arab Spring revolutions. Could you please elaborate on the balance between democracy and security? How difficult this problem is? What lessons can we learn from Arab Spring revolutions? What dangers is this region facing today in terms of terrorism?

SL: I think more and more countries today embrace democracy as their way of organizing society and structuring their state. Russia made this choice a long time ago. It is our clear choice, and it can’t be revised. We are convinced that democracy is the way the world and every country should follow, but we are also convinced that it is up to each nation to choose a specific model of democratic development and democratic institutions. Every country has to make that choice taking into account its traditions, history, and values. Yes, there are some universal criteria that have been adopted by all. I am talking about things like the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights signed by all UN member states. But when, in addition to the universally accepted principles, certain countries seek to impose their own system of somewhat controversial values which have only been around for the past couple of decades, insisting on them as universal obligations, this leads to conflicts and causes certain nations to interfere with the internal affairs of other countries, imposing their model of democracy on others. This is no longer democracy. This kind of forced “democratization” result in instability. This happened when Americans invaded Iraq; this happened recently, when NATO blatantly overstepped the UN Security Council mandate and bombed Libya; and this kind of external intervention is also happening in a number of other countries in the region. The Syrian conflict is another example of a situation where you have terrorists from all over the world, including Europe, US and Russia, fight there to turn Syria, and in fact this whole region, into a caliphate. So, forced democratization by outside forces undermines stability and produces new threats. Greater stability, on the other hand, provides the best environment for democratic reforms.

So, when the conference on Syria opens (and I really hope that the conference will go ahead as planned on January 22; I hope the opposition does not come up with some unacceptable conditions contrary to the Russian-American initiative), I strongly believe this conference should focus on fighting terrorism as this is the main threat to Syria and other countries in the region today. Certainly, there will be other issues on the agenda, including pressing humanitarian issues, discussions on the political process, organizing the elections, provisional institutions for the transitional period, but all this should be based on a common understanding between the government and the opposition, just the way it was captured in the Geneva communiqué produced at the first Geneva conference.

So, I really hope that our Western partners and our partners in the region, which have more influence on the opposition than anybody else, will make sure, firstly, that the opposition is properly represented at this conference and, secondly, that the opposition attends the conference without any preconditions. The very point of the Russian-American initiative is that the people of Syria should agree on how to implement the principles captured in the Geneva communiqué of June 30, 2013, without any external intervention or any preconditions. But so far, unfortunately, we don’t know what the regime’s opponents, who have recently formed the National Coalition, will do. We are alarmed by the fact that the National Coalition does not seem to have complete unity. We are also alarmed by the fact that the National Coalition keeps saying that this conference must result in a regime change, or even that a regime change is a prerequisite for having the conference. This is something we have never agreed to. We are also alarmed by the fact that the National Coalition does not seem to have complete control over all the groups fighting the regime on the ground. Another concern is that we see among the rebels an increasing number of jihadists who pursue extremist objectives. They want to set up a caliphate and impose sharia laws, and basically they are already terrorizing minorities.

They have formed what they call an Islamic Front, and some of our partners in the West are even flirting with it – even though we know from our confidential contacts with them that they know pretty well that the organizations which formed the Islamic Front are not much different from Jabhat al-Nusra, or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. This alarms us.

Incidents of anti-Christian violence are happening time after time. Before the crisis, there were two million Christians living in Syria. Now there’s probably less than a million left. We don’t have reliable statistics, but I believe at least a million Christians are now refugees. We all know about the most outrageous incidents, and your channel covered some of them. There was an incident at St. Thecla Convent when nuns were taken hostage by terrorists. This incident happened near the town of Maaloula, the only place in the world where people still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ. We know from our contacts with Christian communities in Syria and throughout the region that they are very worried, because Christians have been living in the Middle East for two thousand years, and now all this can be over. So, first of all, it is necessary to come to an agreement on what the future Syria should be like. Fighting terrorism is the number one priority. As far as the political process is concerned, the government and the opposition should first of all put on paper their common vision of Syria’s future – that Syria should be a sovereign, independent country whose territorial integrity is universally recognized and where the rights of all the ethnic, religious and political groups are respected so they all feel secure and they are all involved in in the political process. Who should be in the government, on the other hand, and who should organize the elections – these matters are secondary. The biggest threat comes today from those who seek to defeat the government on the battlefield and set up a totally different state.