Chaos in Syria could avalanche if regime changes abruptly - Lavrov
MOSCOW. Jan 25 (Interfax) - Participants of the Geneva II peaceful conference on Syria do not have the task of changing the regime in the country, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"Everyone says that if we just set the task of regime change, as some are attempting to do, chaos will come to Syria. And more than enough chaos is there. But this could simply avalanche situational development and no one wants this. Everyone realizes that order should be maintained and no other methods, but preserving the current institutions, exist for this," Lavrov said in an interview with the News on Saturday program.
Moscow is pushing Syrians "so that they agree themselves," Lavrov said. "This could sound quite naive but no other way actually exists," the minister said.
"It is possible to influence the parties and to prompt them so that they sit at the negotiating table, not just 'serve' an act, and truly search for some compromises. It is impossible to put some scheme on the table, like, 'provision one - someone leaves, provision 2 - someone comes.' This is social engineering, which has never ended in anything good anywhere," Lavrov said.
"The issue of Syria's integrity and consistency concerns everyone, and at that, concerns us for a long time. Nothing is said in the Geneva communique that someone should leave - it states the necessity for Syrians themselves to accord a mutually acceptable composition and parameters of transition period. And it is emphasized there that, at that, it is necessary to preserve the institutions of Syrian society, including the army and security service," the Russian foreign minister said.
When asked how the opening of the conference proceeded, in particular due to the information on the fighting between Syrian governmental reporters and anti-Assad activists, Lavrov said: "No fight occurred there. I have not noticed communication either. The speeches of the delegations of the Syrian government and the National Coalition regarding each other were very harsh and emotional. They sat almost opposite each other but I think both looked at the text."
"Things proceed slowly, not as fast as we wanted, even amid the political will of Moscow and Washington," Lavrov said.
Moscow can not "take the entire responsibility for what is happening," the minister said. "We are working jointly with the U.S. and the UN. And other three permanent members of the Security Council - China, France and the UK - and Arab countries help us to the degree, to which they can influence the opposition," he said.
"Certainly, the Russian-U.S. initiative was a catalyst of all these efforts because the situation was getting out of hand before it was proposed. But by advocating for the necessity to call such a conference, the Russian-U.S duo has shown the readiness to mobilize all our partners in order to support this initiative. As a result, it has become possible to gather everyone who came to Montreux," Lavrov said.
"This is far from the entire variety of Syrian society, this is just the first step," the minister said. "This dialog is to be expanded so that the process is truly representative," Lavrov said.
