Russia says US policy in Middle East is ‘unconstructive’

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described American policy in the Middle East on Tuesday as “unconstructive”, RT Arabic has reported. He made his comment during a meeting with his Croatian counterpart, Gordan Grlic Radman, in response to America’s claim that Moscow’s policies in the region are destabilising.

Earlier on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had declared that, “Russia continues to threaten Mediterranean stability using a variety of techniques to spread disinformation, undermine national sovereignty, and sow chaos, conflict and division within countries throughout the region.”

Calling out America’s “unconstructive” manoeuvres in the Middle East, Lavrov pointed out: “The US practically bans all the countries in the region from cooperating with Russia, whether in the military or technical fields, as well as on any other issue.”

On Monday, America imposed new sanctions on the Turkish defence industry due to Ankara’s purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defence system which the US says is incompatible with NATO systems and could compromise them. Turkey has denied the claims, saying that it has no plans to integrate the Russian system into NATO.

READ: US sanctions spark rare show of unity in Turkey’s parliament