Ceasefire in Eastern Ghouta must exclude terrorists: Russian FM
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E-mail Xinhua, February 23, 2018
Russia wishes to see terrorist group Jabhat al-Nusra and its partner groups excluded from the ceasefire in Eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Syrian capital of Damascus, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference on Thursday.
Lavrov landed at the Belgrade Airport on Wednesday afternoon to attend the ceremony of the 180th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Speaking after meeting his Serbian counterpart Ivica Dacic, Lavrov said that Russia was the initiator of today's discussion at the UN Security Council about the draft resolution on the implementation of a 30-day humanitarian truce in Syria.
"We are ready to take the proposed resolution into consideration. We suggested a very clear formulation that the ceasefire will not relate to Jabhat al-Nusra and groups with whom it cooperates which shell residential parts of Damascus with artillery fire," Lavrov said.
He reminded that regular artillery fire has been coming from the area of Eastern Ghouta for the past year, terrorizing the civilians in Damascus - as well as that on several occasions they struck territory belonging to the Russian embassy and the building of the trade representation of Russia.
"Every time when such terrorist attacks start from the area of Eastern Ghouta, we know that behind them is Jabhat al-Nusra and terrorist organizations that cooperate with it and each time we ask from the Security Council to give a principle-based assessment about these unacceptable terrorist acts. Each time our U.S. and European partners avoided to react," Lavrov said.
He noted that "Western partners do not want to go so far to exclude terrorist from the ceasefire, which brings up many questions among Russians", and added that just days ago Jabhat al-Nusra and other organizations rejected the offer of Russian Army to leave Eastern Ghouta free-willingly and without their weapons.
"They rejected the offer and continued to open fire towards the city from their positions, keeping the civilians from the Eastern Ghouta as a human shield," Lavrov illustrated.
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