One Phone Call Later and President Putin Officially Assumes Role of Peacemaker in Middle East
It became known what Vladimir Putin discussed on the phone today with the King of Saudi Arabia. Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud expressed serious concern over the new rocket attack attempt against Riyadh from the territory of Yemen. Having condemned the bombardment, the Russian President spoke in favor of a peaceful resolution of the Yemeni conflict. The conversation also touched Syria. Both politicians emphasized the importance of the further political settlement. A special representative of the UN Secretary-General, Staffan de Mistura, flew to Moscow to discuss this settlement.
Dmitry Petrov will tell about his visit.
The last round of the Geneva talks on Syria was recognized as a failure by all the participants. And now, the main hope is the negotiation platform in Astana. It’s there that the UN Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, is heading now. He flew to Moscow today to meet with Lavrov and Shoygu and see if their positions coincide.
This isn’t Mistura's first visit to Moscow. And although recently he made quite harsh assessments against the official Damascus, the Russian Foreign Ministry is ready to consistently discuss everything related to the Syrian settlement.
Sergey Lavrov, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs: "We reaffirm, as Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said, our full adherence to UN Security Council resolution No. 2254".
The Russian military did, perhaps, more than anyone else to destroy the barbarian caliphate. But now, they have to work with Syrian colleagues to deal with humanitarian issues in the liberated territories. This especially concerns Raqqa, which was subjected to the most severe coalition forces bombardment.
Sergey Shoygu, Russian Defense Minister: "The city is practically destroyed. The city is on the verge of an epidemic. I'm sure that you were reported about this. We’d like to discuss with you vigorous steps to improve the situation".
It turns out that it was today that de Mistura received official information about yet another format for the first time, about the convocation of the Congress of the Syrian People in Sochi. It was Lavrov and Shoygu who told him. It’s clear that he, as a high-ranking UN official, doesn’t like that someone else is ready to solve the Syrian problem. Obviously, the UN will continue to insist on working only in the Geneva format.
Staffan de Mistura, UN Special Representative for Syria: "Today, I was briefed on the details of our plans. The next step, in addition to tomorrow's Astana meeting and today's talks, is the Geneva meeting, which we plan to organize. It’ll be an important step to understand what the future of the political process is".
But there’re still a lot of questions. What to do, for example, with the fourth de-escalation zone in Idlib where a large number of Al-Nusra Front militants accumulated. Lavrov makes it clear that if they don’t stop fighting, the Syrian army, with Russian support, will take the necessary measures.
The head of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs proposes that the UN participates the solution of humanitarian problems more actively.
Sergey Lavrov: “Today, we also talked about the need to intensify the efforts of the United Nations to agree on the arrangements for participation in the humanitarian demining. As for now, the United Nations isn’t fully involved in it. We think it's wrong”.
It might be the humanitarian demining that de Mistura will speak about in Astana, as well as about the exchange of prisoners of war.
Dmitry Petrov, Maxim Shchepilov, Vadim Prusov, and Valery Vinokurov, Vesti.