Washington-Sana
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed the need to eliminate terrorism in Syria and find a political solution to the crisis in it, in accordance with UN Resolution 2254.
Lavrov said during a joint press conference with his American counterpart Mike Pompeo, reported by Sputnik, "The Syrians alone determine the future of their country," stressing the need to reach a political solution to the crisis in Syria in accordance with UN resolution 2254 and the elimination of terrorism.
Lavrov pointed out that his talks and his American counterpart dealt with a wide range of urgent issues, including the situation in the Middle East, combating terrorism and nuclear disarmament on the Korean Peninsula, the renewal of the "START" treaty to reduce nuclear strategic weapons and Russian-American trade cooperation.
Lavrov criticized Washington for not showing the required cooperation with Moscow to resolve international issues, saying that "the level of relations between Moscow and Washington does not correspond to the interests of the two countries and the world."
Lavrov stressed that "it is in the interest of the two countries to take advantage of the wide potentials of cooperation and develop their relations for their benefit and the entire international community .. We are determined to do so and we felt that the American side is open to this as well and we would like to continue such dialogue and work to find solutions that allow moving forward in launching a constructive dialogue and avoiding confrontations without Affecting the parties ’principled interests.
With regard to the nuclear weapons file, Lavrov renewed his country's invitation to the American side to adopt a joint declaration at the presidential level, stipulating that a nuclear war should not be allowed.
"Ensuring strategic stability in the world was one of the central topics in the discussions," Lavrov said. "We discussed with Pompeo" quite frankly "the fate of the Treaty on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Nuclear Weapons that expires in February 2021, stressing Moscow's willingness to extend it so that no vacuum appears in the area of monitoring the spread of Weapons and reassuring the international community, especially after Washington withdrew from the short and medium-range missile treaty.
On the DPRK file, Lavrov stressed the need to resume direct dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang, calling on the United States not to ask Pyongyang to first implement everything simultaneously as a condition for lifting sanctions against it and providing security guarantees to it.
He expressed Russia's readiness to consider the US proposal on conducting multilateral negotiations on amending the nuclear disarmament treaty to include China if the latter wanted to.
