Russia urges U.S. to refrain from giving advice on Syria policy, stop aiding Syrian opposition
MOSCOW. Oct 18 (Interfax) - The U.S. Department of State should refrain from giving advice to Russia regarding its policy on Syria and at the same time stop sponsoring the Syrian opposition, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman says.
"We take special interest in judgments aired at official press briefings at the U.S. Department of State, not to mention when Russia's policy is judged and advice given regarding its adjustment," Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said at a news conference in Moscow on Thursday.
"We also have our opinion as to what Washington should do," Lukashevich said. "We would like, for instance, the United States to use its close ties with the Syrian opposition not to provide it with financial and logistics assistance, including, as the U.S. press reports itself, information furnished through intelligence services, and facilitate arms supplies to illegal armed units from third countries' military arsenals," Lukashevich said.
Instead of this, the U.S. could "encourage the opposition to seek political settlement and broad inter-Syrian dialogue," he said.
"It would also be desirable if the U.S., which often insists on unilateral sanction pressure on Syria, impartially analyzes humanitarian consequences of this policy," Lukashevich said.
U.S. Department of State Spokesperson Victoria Nuland said at a press briefing on October 15 that Russia could put stronger pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his regime. "They [Russia] have influence that we don't have, since they have had these military relationships for so long, and we'd like to see them use it to pressure Assad to stop, starting by declaring that they will not ship any more weapons or any other things to this regime," Nuland said.
va
(Our editorial staff can be reached at eng.editors@interfax.ru)
181-1626-1644
