Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was asked by Al Jazeera yesterday at the Doha Forum about the political turmoil in Syria. At the time, President Assad was still in power and the rebels were on the outskirts of Damascus. Excerpts follow from the posting on the Foreign Ministry’s website, slightly edited:
“Our country has been a very big backer, not only of Syria, but also of Iraq, of Libya, of Lebanon. And it is not our fault that all the resolutions which were adopted on the Middle East issues” were not followed, leaving “the biggest trend of the modern world—namely the fight against those who want to keep hegemony, and on the other hand, those who would like to live in a free world where the United Nations demand to respect sovereign equality of states, is really implemented, be it BRICS, be it Shanghai Cooperation Organization, be it Gulf Cooperation Council, ASEAN and many others.
“So, the fight of these two worlds, one phasing out and another one emerging, is not going without clashes. And the conflicts which were adventures, aggressive adventures which were launched by the U.S. and its allies in Iraq, Libya, Palestine, because the behavior of the United States on what is going on in Palestine is absolutely unacceptable, invading Syria. All this is the repetition of the old, very old habit to create some havoc, some mess, and then to fish in the muddy waters. And the Middle East and Europe is not enough already.
“The NATO, under the United States command, pronounced last year at the summit that the security in Euro-Atlantic is indivisible from the security in Indo-Pacific region. So they already eye the entire Eurasian continent, including South China Sea, Strait of Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula.
“They are creating NATO-like military blocs. NATO infrastructure is being promoted to the region. This is a reflection of attempts not to allow the hegemony to phase out. But this is a fight against history.
