Lavrov offers to add Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Islam to list of terrorist organizations operating in Syria
NEW YORK, UN. Sept 21 (Interfax) - Russia offers to return to the issue of including the groups Ahrar al-Sham and Jaysh al-Islam in the list of terrorist organizations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at the UN Security Council ministerial meeting on the situation in the Middle East.
"It is necessary to return to this list and add these organizations to it," he said, speaking of the organizations Ahrar al-Sham and Jaysh al-Islam operating in Syria.
After the entry into force of the Russian-American agreements on September 12 was declared, the Ahrar al-Sham organization's leadership made an official statement that it would not observe them due to Jabhat al-Nusra [banned in Russia] being mentioned as a terrorist organization in the agreements and Ahrar al-Sham is cooperating closely with it and does not consider it as such, he said.
Russia has already offered to include Ahrar al-Sham in the list of terrorist organizations, Lavrov said.
Lavrov recalled that Russia previously stood for including these groups in the list of terrorist organizations, however, it did not insist on that "as a goodwill gesture."