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Moscow says anti-terror fight should be governed by international law

Bombardments on the territory of a sovereign state without consent of that country and without a direct permit granted by the UN Security Council are illegitimate

MOSCOW, January 21. /TASS/. Anti-terror fight should be waged only on the basis of international law, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told an annual news conference here on Wednesday.

“Bombardments on the territory of a sovereign state, including bombings under the pretext of destroying terrorist groupings, without consent of that country and without a direct permit granted by the UN Security Council are illegitimate,” he said, noting that “moreover, only the UN Security Council is empowered to consider a grouping as terrorist, if we want so that this qualification will be compulsory for all countries in the world.”

This also concerns the need to observe Syria’s sovereignty and the need to observe Lebanon’s sovereignty regardless whether this is the struggle against extremist organisations, such as Jabhat al-Nusra or the Islamic State through “a coalition which the United States “has formed” and which operates, say, in Iraq at consent of Iraqi government and in Syria without such agreement,” the minister said.

“We are convinced that this should be discussed,” he said, adding that “moreover, in this case as for Syria in the anti-terror fight, Syrian government is a natural ally in this struggle. An agreement may be attained very quickly and this will be effective and will match fully a decision taken at the Group of Eight summit in Lough Erne (Northern Ireland) by the way at the initiative of British Prime Minister David Cameron that Syrian government and opposition should unite in the fight against terrorism.”

The foreign minister noted that as a new player representing coalition had appeared, these forces should be united and Syrian government was a reliable partner in this affair. “To say that this is impossible to cooperate with Syrians is untrue,” he added, noting that “the process of Syria’s chemical demilitarisation showed that Syrian government takes very responsibly international commitments and can be a reliable and viable partner.”

Lavrov said he planned to talk the situation in Syria and in the region in general with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman who will pay a working visit to Moscow on January 25-26.

The Russian minister noted that Palestinian-Israeli settlement situation “is in a deep deadlock now.”

“This would be interesting for me to learn which views our Israeli counterpart has, including, in my mind, the need ripen to resume the work of the [Middle East] Quartet and negotiating parties’ refusal to make further attempts to take unilateral actions,” he added.