Lavrov defends Syria conference initiative

Syria is on the brink of civil war, but tackling this conflict by means of foreign military intervention would be fraught with a spate of deadly sectarian clashes across the entire Middle East. Accordingly, Russia will continue to block Security Council motions to resolve to Syrian crisis by launching a military campaign similar to those that were waged by the West in Iraq and Libya. Moscow believes only Kofi Annan’s settlement plan can bring results, provided the international community agrees concrete action on it.

Russia has proposed an emergency international conference on Syria at which the permanent members of the UN Security Council, the European Union, the Arab League, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and, importantly, also Iran would discuss how they can use their influence on the sides in the Syrian conflict to bring this conflict to an end.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke about this in an interview with The Voice of Russia:

"We believe foreign powers must abandon their attempts to impose solutions on the Syrians. Instead, they should create conditions for the Syrian sides to cease hostilities and sit down for talks. The proposed conference would not try to predetermine the outcome of the Syrian conflict. It would only try to encourage the Syrians to make decisions on this outcome themselves."

The responsibility for Syria’s trouble is shared by the Syrian government and the Syrian opposition. Apportioning blame, however, is much less urgent than implementing Kofi Annan’s peace plan.

In his interview, Mr Lavrov gave his opinion on why this plan, which includes the presence of UN observers in Syria, has started to suffer setbacks:

"The hopeful signs that started to emerge after the unanimous adoption of this plan on April 12th have apparently come into conflict with the designs of those whose real goal is more and more trouble. These folk need trouble in order to use it as a justification of foreign military intervention in Syria. This is why Kofi Annan’s peace plan has started to stall. Russia wants to change this by improving coordination among foreign countries that can influence the Syrian situation. Unfortunately, it is not yet clear whether the current diplomatic disarray over Syria is the result of inadequate coordination or of a deliberate strategy aimed at torpedoing Annan’s plan."