Moscow does not back all of Brahimi's ideas on Syria settlement - Foreign Ministry
MOSCOW. Feb 7 (Interfax) - Moscow does not agree with all of UN/Arab League Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi's ideas on settling the crisis in Syria, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said.
"I would like to make it clear that, yes, surely, we have supported and will support Mr. Brahimi, of which we are saying repeatedly, but this support is not unconditional, and not all of the envoy's ideas appear to be consensus-based," Lukashevich said at a news conference in Moscow on Thursday.
"You know that, after he spoke at a UN Security Council consultative meeting in New York, these ideas did not win consensus-based support, and therefore, all participants in the Syrian settlement efforts, perhaps Russia in the first place, are working on this," Lukashevich said in commenting on U.S. Department of State Spokesperson Victoria Nuland's remark that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry promised to continue supporting Brahimi and continue using the Brahimi-Bogdanov-Burns channel to promote the political transition strategy for Syria.
Lukashevich called on Nuland to make more balanced remarks on this issue.
He also mentioned Nuland's statement that Lavrov and Kerry agreed to continue working to eliminate differences between the United States and Russia and between Russia and other members of the international community on how to support political transition in Syria.
"This also turns everything on its head," Lukashevich said, noting that, while the Syrian opposition earlier absolutely refused to talk with Damascus, its latest statements signal that its members are beginning to understand that there is no alternative to a political settlement.
"In this sense, there is no division between Russia and some of the international community. We are part of the international community, and we perhaps are making even more active efforts than our partners in exploring precisely political options for settling this complicated conflict," Lukashevich said.