No. 119-30-12-2013

PRESS-RELEASE

Excerptions from the interview of the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V.Lavrov to the TV Channel Russia-24
(14 December 2013)

«Question: Did you discuss further specific steps on the liquidation of those points at issue, which remained around the talks on Iran's Nuclear Programme, or some specific points with the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif? [Russian Foreign Minister visited Iran on December 11, 2013].

Sergey Lavrov: P5+1 is dealing with all the issues of Iran's nuclear programme and settlement of any problems around it. It conducts respective work together with Iran and under guidance and coordination of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy for the European Union Catherine Ashton. I had no authority to develop any topics or think about further steps on behalf of this group in Tehran.

The current visit to Tehran was bilateral, and there was no need to develop what we have already reached. Everything is fixed clearly in the Geneva document describing the steps, which will be undertaken by Tehran in the nearest six months. First of all, it concerns freezing of almost all sites, non-enhancement of enrichment over 5%, stopping of enrichment of up to 20%, termination of any works in the site, where a heavy water moderated reactor is being constructed in Arak. This includes the entire range of other measures, including provision of transparency, which envisages a significant extension of competence of IAEA inspectors when monitoring and verifying, what is going on.

In response, measures to ease the burden of sanctions were agreed upon. The first step should have been made by those countries, which adopted unilateral sanctions against Iran bypassing the UN Security Council. I mean the United States and the European Union. All of this must happen within six months. Iranian foreign assets, which were frozen within the framework of unilateral sanctions, will partially be unfrozen. Everything has been recorded to the last detail, and there is nothing to dispute.

As to our further work, it must be collective (as agreed) and focus on the coordination of final parameters of peaceful Iran's Nuclear Programme, including uranium enrichment parameters for the production of fuel, if all of the concerns of the IAEA are at the same time appeased, and the Agency fully and strictly monitors the programme. This work can only be collective.

Of course, we touched upon this topic at the negotiations with the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. We have a common conviction that the first six-month stage is extremely detailed. We should not attempt to interpret them in an expanded or narrow way within the framework of the implementation of these agreements. I hope that this is what will happen.

Unfortunately, the start of the implementation of the first stage drags on, because the European Union informed us that all EU member states should first approve these agreements. The closest opportunity to do this is the 16 December. Incidentally, it is the same day, when I will hold a meeting with 28 EU ministers and Catherine Ashton within the framework of the so-called Permanent Partnership Council. However, there are evidences that Europeans will not be able to approve this package this time, and then all this will be transferred to January, i.e. the countdown of the six months of implementation of the first stage will be postponed for another month.

We are worried about this, and we will attempt to get an update from our colleagues from the EU about those "insurmountable barriers", which, in fact, postpone for many weeks the approval of the agreement referred to as a historical breakthrough, the materialisation of which is a wish of everybody.

Question: Let us pass to another historical event. I mean Syrian problems. Now the Geneva-2 conference, which is expected to be held next year, is actively being prepared. The participation of Iran in it is one of the key issues. In light of your negotiations with Iranian colleagues and the preparation for this conference, how big is the probability that this event will be postponed again? Will Iran participate in it? And who will participate on behalf of the Syrian opposition?

Sergey Lavrov: This is a very correct and complicated question. Firstly, the Geneva-2 conference was postponed many times. If you remember, the initiative to convene it was proposed on the 7 May, when the US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Moscow. Since then, we met many times and each time, among other issues, we discussed the deadlines of convention of this conference. Of course, we share the understanding that the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon must announce its deadlines, coordinating them with his Special Envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi. However, we all understand that we discussed and still discuss the deadlines with Americans as well, because they cannot be artificial, all the parties should be ready to come to Geneva to start a serious conversation.

Soon after the 7 May, we received consent from the Syrian government to send a delegation to this conference, and it has confirmed its consent just recently. Meanwhile, we receive quite contradictory signals from the opposition: one time its leader says that they have made the decision to go, another time his deputy reports that there is no use to go until they have military advantage "on the ground". Or another example: first the opposition announces that there will be no preconditions, but just recently the leaders of the so-called National Opposition have announced that the Friends of Syria Group (western countries, countries of the region and other countries supporting this National Coalition) gathered in London several months ago and formulated support for the NC for it to request replacement of the regime at the conference. These are those preconditions, which should not be present. The conference should have a single agenda, namely, the communique of last June, which states that all the issues of the future of their country should be resolved by Syrians within the framework of the negotiations between the government and all the opposition layers on the basis of mutual consent. But all the external players should motivate Syrians to do this.

The situation is evidently knotty. Of course, we support the efforts, which Americans undertake (as they have obliged) to convince the opposition to come to the conference without unacceptable preconditions, as well as we conduct our work not only with the Syrian government, but also with all opposition members, including the NC.

We invited representatives of the opposition to Moscow many times, many of them came at the level of leaders. Now, we have invited the National Coalition, and its leader Mr. Ahmad al-Jarba said that he would come. We must have a dialogue with them. However, in parallel to the attempts of sponsors of the National Coalition to place it as the main force, which will represent all the opponents of the regime at the negotiations, this "main force" is starting to "fall apart". There were statements (we wish to recheck them) that the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which was part of the National Coalition and announced that they will have their own approaches, either have left it or have somewhat isolated from it. There were messages that armed units of the so-called Free Syrian Army stopped to be subordinate to the National Coalition in their majority. Of course, if they have ever been subordinate to it at all. According to the freshest information (for which we get confirmations), 20+ units have joined the Islamic Front. This organisation acknowledged neither the Free Syrian Army nor the National Coalition or Al-Qaeda. However, it has been formed of groups, the spirit of which is close to Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and, so to speak, the Levant, extremist groups acting in the same way as Jihadist Al-Qaeda. This Islamic Front announced its goal to create a caliphate in the territory of Syria and, so to speak, the big Levant. There are contradictory data about sponsors of this structure. We will clarify all of this.

On the 20 December in Geneva, we will have another, and (as we hope) final preparatory contact between us, Americans, the UN, involving other permanent members of the UN Security Council, the League of Arab States and Turkey. However, all these issues must be clarified, because we are told that the National Coalition will represent all of them. At the same time, there are centrifugal processes "on the ground". At the same time, other political opponents of Bashar al-Assad, who are formed not of emigrants, but of those who have always lived and still live in Syria – the National Coordination Committee, the Syria's Kurdish Supreme Council – also do not agree to the leaders of the National Coalition, because they do not agree to its (as they think) quite extremist request positions. We need to clarify all of this. There is only one landmark for us – Security Council resolution 2118, which approved the process of chemical disarmament in Syria. It is on fast-forward, and there will be no serious breaks. The same resolution approved the convention of Geneva-2, having emphasised that representatives of the entire spectrum of the Syrian society must participate in the dialogue. Consequently, we must have the entire opposition represented at decent level, rather than in one structure, the working capability of which is doubtful, taking into account the mess and lurches inside it, as well as seesaws between its participants, when it comes to Geneva-2.

Question: You have listed the most capable groups, which are terrorists and represent the main force of the so-called armed opposition. Will the issue of fighting against terrorism be discussed in Geneva? The formations, you have mentioned, are a part of international terrorism. The same Jabhat al-Nusra is a cell of Al-Qaeda in Syria. Will the issues of fighting such groups be discussed in Geneva?

Sergey Lavrov: I think that this will be the main problem. At least because, when the Geneva Communiqué was adopted in June 2012, it was already clear that more and more foreign contractors, Jihadists, appear in Syria along with the Syrian opposition, which roots deeply into the Syrian soil and is not happy with the regime. They fight the regime and its opponents trying to occupy some territories and to establish the Sharia-based law there. This was a small-scale phenomenon. We did not put it out as the main task, which consisted in stopping bloodshed and prevent the Syrian people from falling into a disastrous abyss with millions of human lives in humanitarian crisis and disaster, etc.

Now, in one and a half years after the adoption of the Geneva Communiqué and less than a year after the proposal of the initiative to convene the conference, more and more of our conversation partners, including from the west, sincerely tell us in trustworthy conversations that they do not consider the Bashar al-Assad's regime the main threat any more as they said on public until recently. Now it is the threat that Syria and other vast territories in North Africa and the Middle East may be occupied by Jihadists and they may establish the order and the rule of international terrorism there. Probably this is the main thing now. It is not mere chance that when four months ago the G8 gathered at the summit in Lough Erne, the appeal of all the G8 leaders to the government and the opposition to join and expel terrorists from the Syrian territory, as well as fight them together, was included into the Syrian section of the declaration. It should be noted that this passage was included into the declaration at the initiative of the host of the summit – the UK Prime Minister David Cameron. When we discuss current affairs related to the convention of the conference and its agenda with our western partners, we always place this problem on the first place and say that we must do everything to knock together an alliance of the government and patriotic opposition capable of fighting against foreign terrorists, who have flown to Syria from all over the world considering it a titbit for the implementation of their malicious plans.

Incidentally, the statistics demonstrates that Jabhat al-Nusra, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and other groups simply hassle with each other more and more often. They have confrontations, occupy populated areas. For example, the Muslim Brotherhood occupied a village, but other Jihadists not sharing their radicalism, wish to establish their own order there. Of course, there are regular confrontations between Jihadists and the Government, between Jihadists and the Free Syrian Army. In such a way conditions are being created, when all Syrian patriots must understand, what is more important for them: to fight for those who wish to turn Syria into a caliphate, or to join and return their homeland the image it had been famous for ages, namely, multi-sectarian, multi-ethnic, laic state, where all the people live in comfort. This topic will certainly be one of the main topics of the Geneva conference.

Question: The situation in Ukraine is developing in such a way that the refusal of the government to sign the letter of intent with the EU resulted in public disturbances and assaults of the opposition. How can the events develop there, and what is Russia's position?

Sergey Lavrov: The situation itself was commented by the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and other representatives of our government many times. It was staged and has been prepared for a long time. We wonder at their response on the brink of hysteria to the sovereign decision of legitimate authorities of Ukraine. What did the government of Viktor Yanukovych do? May be it has withdrawn from the Non-Proliferation Treaty? Or announced that it creates a nuclear bomb in violation of their obligations? Or shot somebody?

The government has used its legitimate competence, because only the executive power may adopt decisions to sign or not to sign any international treaties. If any government adopts a decision to sign a document, that document should be ratified by the parliament. They can state their claims, ask questions, support or not support it, protest or respond within the constitutional, civilised field.

An absolutely normal event – the announcement by the government that their detailed study of this agreement makes them think that it is not beneficial for Ukraine, and they want to think more, refuse to sign it right now and will study it – is followed by such a rabid (I cannot use other word) response. Demonstrations of such scale and with so fierce slogans come to the streets, as if the country announced a war to some peaceful state against the will of the Ukrainian people. This is outside the framework of normal human analysis. There is no doubt that there are provocateurs behind all of this. It is very sad for me that our western partners seem to have lost their sense of reality.

Just imagine that I come to Germany at the height of events, when a new party of European sceptics has appeared there, which received serious ratings with its slogans "stop feeding Europe" and "Germany should distance itself from the EU". Imagine me walking among demonstrators supporting this party and wishing Germany to change its attitude to the EU and isolate from it. How would this be perceived? I think that in this case the European Parliament, NATO Parliamentary Assemblies, the Council of Europe and the OSCE would adopt many resolutions stating that it is outrageous that Russians interfere into internal affairs of sovereign Germany. But how do we explain the events in Ukraine, when heads of foreign services, the High Representative of the Union come and request that the Ukrainian people make their choice in favour of acceding to the Association with the EU?

Just note the difference in positions. The President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin said many times that everybody must respect sovereignty of the Ukrainian state, and all of us would respect the choice made by the Ukrainian people. However, western Europeans say: everybody must respect the choice of Ukraine in favour of Europe. I.e. the choice has already been made for the Ukrainians, all the others just need to respect it. This brings us to sad contemplations.

I as have already said, on the 16 December foreign ministers of the European Union will gather for another monthly meeting in Brussels. It happened that we agreed to hold a session of the Permanent Partnership Council at foreign minister level between Russia and the EU there long ago. It will be interesting to talk about this with my colleagues, who fight for the principle of non-interference into domestic affairs, respect for sovereign rights and speak against drawing of any new dividing lines like "with the EU or against it".

We proposed many times, and the President Vladimir Putin confirmed it again (it is fixed in the Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation), to collectively build up a common economic and humanitarian space from Lisbon to Vladivostok in a peaceful way. The Customs Union, which we have created, is not an attempt to cut off from this goal, but rather a conscious form of cooperation between three countries aimed at the increase of competitiveness of our industry, agriculture, banking and finances, the area of services in general. And only then, when we are more competitive, we should talk with the European Union about the free trade zone as equals and on more beneficial conditions. We do not want to do this now, when the EU attempts to impose its position on the so-called Eastern Partnership countries, when they cannot withstand competition with the overwhelming majority of European goods. However, they lure them into the free trade zone, receiving markets, which will immediately be filled with competitive products from Europe, killing the same manufacture in the countries, which will sign the Association Agreement, creating problems for Russia, because we also have no customs borders with these states. This is the background of this.

Our European partners are worried, primarily because they lose such rather cheap, if not to say free, added value, especially in crisis conditions. The other reason is ideological charge. All those thinking in "either… or" categories, and whose main goal in the entire Eastern Partnership project was to tear our neighbours from Russia, even if it is done artificially and using blackmailing, have seen that it is not that easy.

We will have a sufficiently serious talk about this. I hope that my partners will be honest in it, and will not try to avoid it under some pretexts.

Question: Is the door to the Customs Union open for the Ukraine?

Sergey Lavrov: The door to the Customs Union is open for any country, which will be ready to sign under all these documents making up its foundations, and then under the documents, which (in addition to the CU) create a foundation for the Common Economic Space. The Agreement on Eurasian Economic Union should be prepared by next May, which will remove all the restrictions, remove all the withdrawals and will ensure barrier-free movement of goods, capitals, workforce and services.

Question: Some countries having no border with Russia expressed a wish, at least, to start the process of approaching the CU, and prospectively accede to it. Does this mean that the CU model is attractive for Vietnam, India?

Sergey Lavrov: This is a big market. You must clearly understand that neither India, nor Vietnam or Turkey requested membership in the CU, they have not written any applications. They proposed to start negotiations on the creation of a free trade zone, where joint borders mean nothing. There are many examples for that. The negotiations about the creation of a free trade zone between the CU and Vietnam have already started. We expect that if we succeed (we have good chances for that) they will serve as a model for similar negotiations about the free trade zone between the CU and the ASEAN. Approximately at the same time as with Vietnam, we conduct negotiations on the creation of a free trade zone between the CU and New Zealand, as well as between the CU and the European Free Trade Association, which includes western European countries (in particular, Switzerland, Norway), which are not EU members. There is interest, and it is mutual. We have complementary economies, except some types of goods (we need to agree on special regimes for them) with the majority of those, who are interested in the development of such relationship with the CU. I think that this is a prospective affair.

Question: Just recently, it has been reported that they want to "steal" Edward Snowden from Russia. Does the fact that he received asylum and is in Russia interfere with the relationship between Moscow and Washington?

Sergey Lavrov: This does not bother us. We have not created this problem. We did not take a passport, a travel document, from Snowden. We did not choose his route, he has done this. We did not organise any "ghost stories" like forced landing of the plane of the President of Bolivia Evo Morales.

First of all, we guided ourselves by legal norms, because we have no agreement on extradition with the United States, although we proposed it to Americans many times. I do not hide that the primary goal of this was to get persons accused in Russia of severe crimes, including terrorism, who have found asylum in the territory of the United States, to be extradited, because they do not and will never give them to us.

Nevertheless, the fact is that we have no extradition agreement with Americans, therefore we have no legal grounds for that. We were guided by ethnic, humanitarian considerations: when a person requests a temporary asylum, having studied his situation (he faces judicial proceedings, which will hardly be righteous), we adopted a decision in full compliance with provisions of international humanitarian law on asylum.

I cannot tell how much this bothers Americans. Sometimes it seems to us that this situation irritates them, they pump it up to the universal scale, they do not understand intelligible explanations – legal or humanitarian. I do not think that there are people wishing to "queer pitch" to us in the White House or the U.S. Department of State, but probably there are such persons in the American Administration».