Lavrov Warns Syria Rivals Risk 'Mutual Destruction'
إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية
Russia on Wednesday urged the warring sides in Syria to halt their almost two-year conflict and start talks, warning that seeking a military settlement risked mutual destruction.
"It's time to end this two-year conflict," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after a meeting with Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi and other top Arab diplomats.
"Neither side can allow itself to bet on a military settlement as this is a path to nowhere, a path to mutual destruction," he said.
Lavrov, who on Monday is due to host Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem for crucial talks, said Moscow was working to encourage dialogue between the rebels and regime of President Bashar Assad.
"There are signs of positive tendencies, signs of tendencies for dialogue both from the side of the government and the opposition," he said.
But he said it was up to the two sides to decide what kind of dialogue might take place and at what level.
"It is important that they do not come out with any conditions for each other and say that I am going to talk to this person but not that one."
The fighting -- which according to the United Nations has claimed 70,000 lives since the conflict began in March 2011 -- has further intensified in the last days as both sides press for the military advantage.
Insurgents fired mortar rounds at one of Assad's palaces in the Syrian capital on Tuesday. The day before, an apparent surface-to-surface missile attack flattened a residential area of Aleppo city, killing at least 31 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Moscow, unlike other world powers, still keeps close ties with the regime of Assad and has infuriated the West and some Arab states by refusing to halt military cooperation with Damascus.
Lavrov confirmed that Russia was working on agreeing a trip to Moscow by the head of the Syrian opposition National Coalition Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib who has previously been unwilling to visit Russia over its past support for the regime.
"We are agreeing a date of a visit here by Mr Khatib, which will probably happen at the start of March," said Lavrov.
He said the diplomacy was aimed at "creating the conditions for the start of direct dialogue" between the regime and opposition.
"What is needed is that the sides sit at the negotiating table," said Lavrov.
He said there were signs of a new readiness on the part of the Syrian opposition for dialogue and it was vital that this was met by similar moves on the part the Syrian government.
"The government has long talked about this but now has come the time when words have to be put into concrete deeds," said Lavrov.
"We count on this happening and we will work to make sure it does happen."
Lavrov was speaking after a meeting of the formal session of the so-called Russian-Arab Forum that was founded in December 2009 but failed to meet as tensions rose between Moscow and regional states over the Arab Spring uprisings.
As well as Arabi, the talks included the foreign ministers of Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon and Egypt. However the top diplomats of Qatar and Saudi Arabia -- who have been strongly supportive of the Syrian opposition and critical of Moscow -- were conspicuously absent.
20 February 2013, 12:45
24
Is he the foreign minister of Russia or Syria? What business does he have in dictating what the Syrian want? Does he accept the USA to dictate how human rights are violated in Russia every day? If he doesn’t, then he should shut his mouth up and show us his back. Additionally, what dialogue does this stupid man want after more than 70K people died and millions of Syrians displaced. Is he really sane? I think he should go to a shrink to get assessed because his brain power is childish and more so he shows retarded signs.
20 February 2013, 17:45
00
I agree with you that this war needs to be solved through dialogue but not with Bashar in. The Russian FM is demanding a dialogue with a regime that’s killing its people and previously killed us the Lebanese and destroyed our future. I am a man who lived during the war and know how my future because of assad’s family got destroyed. I left Lebanon not because I wanted but because I had no way of carrying on with dignity and safety. The same is now happening to the poor people of Syria. As a Lebanese, I sympathize with all the innocent Syrian people. And like the saying goes “It’s better for a man/family to die than for the whole nation to perish”. Assad should go, full stop. And the sooner he goes, the better the chances are for the Alawets to co-exist with the Sunni majority. Should the war go on, chances are the innocent Alawets will pay the price!
20 February 2013, 17:51
00
What terrorism are you talking about! I guess your brain is smaller than the Russian FM. From day one, the Syrian people wanted freedom. This could have been given to them while Assad could have been given a safe haven to abscond to. What’s happening in Syria is not terrorism nor is the fault of the Gulf’s states. The Sunni in Syria are more than 75% of the population and are decent people. They could easily co-exist with the Christians and even the Alawets despite all what they saw from killing at the hands of Hafez. You couldn’t endlessly govern a nation with only less than 7% of the population. Do you know that the Alawets are lesser than the Christians in number? Stop this terrorism mantra because it only exists in your spoilt brain.
20 February 2013, 17:55
02
@josh-bustany
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. To us Palestinians who fight Israel are freedom fighters, to Israel and others they are terrorists,
Lay off the Sunni hatred, innuendo and bashing. Without broad based support this uprising in Syria could not have continued and that is what speaks volumes.
20 February 2013, 19:11
01
if it was only "a deternt in the face of the bully", I would agree with you.
but the thing is they stopped being that long time ago, and now they are the internal bully executing the orders of iran.
20 February 2013, 18:18
02
please start with the Iranian terrorism here Lebanon if you are seriously talking.
let hizbushaitan deliver all the wanted guys to start with.
20 February 2013, 22:46
00
If the regime was doing well would lavrov every talk about 'mutual destruction' and no 'military soultion'. The reason the choirs of the regime and its allies keep talking these days of no military solution because the opposite is exactly true, of course there is a military ending to any conflict, the question is how long and how many lives. Simple comparison between the rebelion summer 2011 and summer 2012 would tell any objective person that make no mistake the rebelion is slowly but surely biting more meat off the regime. It took the afghanis ten years and a million victim to take down the communist regime in afghanistan, there too the russians used migs and scuds.
