ON SYRIA, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER SERGEY LAVROV NEGOCIATING DAY WITH JOHN KERRY

USPA NEWS - In Moscow (Russia), on December 15, 2015, was held a Press Availability With Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in presence of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER SERGEY LAVROV: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Today, we had a big negotiating day...

In Moscow (Russia), on December 15, 2015, was held a Press Availability With Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in presence of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER SERGEY LAVROV: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Today, we had a big negotiating day with John Kerry and his delegation finalizing their working visit to Moscow. We started with negotiations at Russian foreign ministry and we continued here in the Kremlin during the meeting with President Putin.

Negotiations in the morning and in the evening were concrete, specific. We were focusing on issues of Syrian settlement with the link on intensifying our efforts to counterterrorism. ISIL, Jabhat al-Nusrah, and other terrorist groups are a common threat to every one of us, and today, we reiterated our determination to uproot this evil. We reiterated the arrangements reached between the military of the Russian Federation and the U.S., arrangements that are applied to the U.S.-led coalition is working against ISIL.

In practical terms, we have agreed some future steps that will help make our parallel work more efficient and more coordinated. We have dwelled on the Syrian settlement. Arrangements of the Vienna meetings were reiterated. They are based on the Geneva communique of June 2012. We agreed to continue the work that is at some final stage on listing terrorist organizations and on providing assistance to the UN in forming the opposition delegation that should be representative and that should be ready for negotiations with the Syrian Government.

At the constructive basis in the spirit of those principles adopted by the International Syria Support Group, we agreed to keep up with our efforts on the anti-terror track, on arranging negotiations between the government and the opposition, but at the same time we deem it reasonable to reaffirm the arrangements reached in Vienna on October the 30th and November the 14th.

As the United Nations Security Council resolution, with this aim, we support the idea to convene this Friday on December the 18th a meeting of the ISSG at the level of ministers. And we expect that following this meeting, with the consent of all its members, we can submit draft resolution to the Security Council that would reaffirm all the principles enshrined in the Vienna documents ““ the Vienna document of October the 30th and of November the 14th. That´s what we discussed in terms of Syria.

Second, we exchanged our views on tasks in Ukrainian settlement, both the U.S. and the Russian Federation, in furtherance of agreements that were reached in principle between Presidents Putin and Obama ““ confirmed their commitment to the Minsk agreements, to the Normandy format, and will use their opportunities to reach full implementation of the Minsk arrangements. There is a specific idea on how this can be promoted in the most efficient way, and we would like to keep in touch with our U.S. colleagues.

With this, I would like to give the floor to my colleague, John Kerry. Please, you have the floor.

.... TO BE CONTINUED WITH JOHN KERRY' S INTERVENTION ON THE SYRIAN ISSUE

Ruby BIRD
http://www.portfolio.uspa24.com/