Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says Washington is making a grave mistake by appeasing those who want to use the terrorist group Islamic State to force the ouster of Syria’s president, Bashar Assad.
On Wednesday, Lavrov spoke on the phone with his US counterpart, Secretary of State John Kerry, who expressed concern over Russian support to the Syrian leader.
“Kerry was also pushing the very strange idea that supporting Bashar Assad in his anti-terror fight only strengthens the positions of ISIS, because the sponsors of ISIS would pump even more arms and money into it,” Lavrov said.
“It’s an absolutely upside-down logic and yet another attempt to appease those who use terrorists to fight dissenting regimes,” the Russian FM said, mentioning US attempts to cooperate with various extremist groups in Syria over the past few years.
“It’s a colossal mistake that the US-led coalition never considered interaction with Syria, not even information exchange,” Lavrov said. “I cannot comprehend this logic, or rather absolute lack of logic.”
Russian Weapons for Syria
Russia’s flights with humanitarian aid to Syria also carry military equipment, and Russian military personnel are present in Syria because of the deliveries of weapons to the Syrian Army–all under old contracts, Lavrov said.
Russian weapons are only being delivered to Syria to fight terrorism, the Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said Thursday.
“I can assure you that we are pursuing no other goal except fighting international terrorism by providing military and technical aid to Damascus,” she added.
Russia believes that the Syrian Army is the only force that can effectively counteract Islamic State, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Thursday.
Washington has been striving to oust President Assad for years now. To achieve their goal, the US is advocating a ban on all kinds of help to the Syrian government, with the country remaining in a state of a war since February 2011.
