Russia will not persuade West to buy oil, gas, there are other sales markets - Lavrov

ANTALYA. March 10 (Interfax) - Russia will not be persuading the West into buying oil and gas if they decide not to buy them, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

"We leave it all to the discretion and conscience of our Western colleagues. We have never used oil and gas as weapons," Lavrov said during a press conference.

"If they stop buying oil and gas, our Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said in great detail that we will not be persuading [them] into buying our oil and gas," he said.

If Europe wants to replace oil and gas with something, "we will have other sales markets, they already exist," the minister said.