Russia looks for diplomatic solution in Syria
ASSAD SUPPORTERS WELCOME RUSSIAN FM LAVROV
A high-level Russian delegation arrived in Damascus on 7 February to hold talks with Syrian President Bashar al Assad in an attempt to push for a diplomatic solution to the year-long crisis in the country after the failure of the UN Security Council to find common ground on 4 February.
The Russian delegation, headed by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Foreign Intelligence Chief Mikhail Fradkov announced that they would convey a powerful message to President Assad, calling for democratic changes in the country.
Russian President Dimitry Medvedev said the possibility that democratic changes might include Assad stepping down in case the violence does not stop should not be excluded.
Russian Ambassador to the EU Vladimir Chizhov, in an exclusive interview with New Europe, explained the Russian position on the Syrian conflict.
Chizhov illustrated why Russia decided not to block the UN SC resolution on Libya but resolutely blocked the one on Syria, and denied it had anything to do with an arms deal. “We did have some arms contracts with Libya as well, as did many other countries, including some EU member states,” Chizhov said. He added that some western countries “including some well known EU member states” had “misinterpreted or interpreted in a very subjective manner” the UN Security Council resolutions which “were not intended to give consent to military operations”.
The ambassador underlined that Russia remained committed to “exclude any repetition of the Libyan escapade in Syria” and focused on a diplomatic solution based on a common position of the UN Security Council. He stressed that it was Russia that tabled the draft resolution on Syria in December 2011 and worked energetically on the counter-draft submitted by Morocco.
Chizhov emphasised that the draft resolution was left unfinished when the draft was put to vote. He reiterated words of the Chinese permanent representative to the UN, who said that putting draft resolution to a vote against the obvious lack of consensus within the Security Council was irresponsible.
Ambassador Chizhov presented the three pillars for a resolution on Syria. “One would be call to end all violence, coming from all sides, he said underlining that violence is coming from all sides and that the call to Syrian authorities to “withdraw all troops and military equipment from cities would in effect mean that vacuum would have been immediately filled by armed opposition groups terrorising the population”.
Chizhov further stressed that Russia's call on the Syrian opposition to dissociate itself from the extremist armed groups was rendered “totally unacceptable” by a number of western which created “some ground for suspicion regarding the real intentions of the authors of this resolution”.
“The second pillar in our view, is the need to promote an inclusive political dialogue between the various forces in Syria,” Chizhov said, and rejected coupling the dialogue with demands for Assad's resignation saying it would make “the notion of the dialogue pointless”. Ambassador emphasised the necessity to prevent “attempts of using the Security Council resolutions as a pretext for intervention by force from the outside”.
He underlined the difference in approach to situation pointing out that that resolution should clearly prohibit use of force, rather than just saying it did not compel it.
Referring to the visit of Foreign Minister Lavrov, the ambassador said that Russia had earlier proposed a round table meeting for the government and the opposition and that authorities had given a positive reply, while different factions of opposition had recieved a mixed reply, some of which declining outright any such idea.
Chizhov said he believed that strategic partnership between the EU and Russia would not suffer due to discord on the issue of Syria. “[It] does not necessarily mean that partners do not have any differences of views”, he said. “I would believe that in any partnership […] there are occasionally differences of views. What is important is the ability to open the discussion on the issues and address them having in mind the view of the other side,” he concluded.
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