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Russian FM denies agreement on Assad’s future in Syria

November 19, 2015 at 10:39 am

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday denied that an agreement on the fate of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad had been reached at the latest round of talks in Vienna, Austria, last week.

Russian media quoted Lavrov as saying during a joint press conference with his Lebanese counterpart, Gebran Bassil, in Moscow that there was “no agreement on the non-participation of President Al-Assad in any stage of the political process”.

Lavrov explained that some of the partners proposed to remove Al-Assad, but those ideas have not been unanimously refused during the Vienna talks.

The minister said some “Western partners” had to change their position due to the unfortunate developments that followed the terrorist attacks in Paris, adding that he hopes that other Western partners will adopt the same position as well.

“I hope that the change in position of our Western colleagues which unfortunately came at the cost of the terrible terror attacks will be seen on the part of our other Western partners,” he said.

Russia Today reported Lavrov as saying that following the carnage in Paris it was now clear that global powers should unite without any preconditions on the fate of Syria’s embattled leader Bashar Al-Assad.

“It seems to me there are no longer any doubts that it is simply unacceptable to put forward any pre-conditions for joining forces in the fight against terror,” the minister said.

“The Islamic State is not a state, of course and our common duty is to not allow it to become a state, in spite of its attempts to set up a caliphate,” he said, adding that Moscow hopes that the political process to resolve the Syrian conflict will start as scheduled in January 2016.

“The more we delay the political process between the Syrian government and the opposition, the more things deteriorate for the Syrian people,” he said.