Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov

The St. Petersburg Economic Forum held in June 2013 brought together 7,190 participants, both delegates and media, including the heads of 176 major foreign and 436 Russian companies, of whom 67 were heads of foreign companies and 24 were heads of Russian companies on the Forbes and Fortune lists. During the forum, 102 agreements with the combined value of RUR9.6 trillion were signed. Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov was one of the attendees at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum.

– Minister Lavrov, we met on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Therefore, my first question is: what meetings will you have here, whom will you talk to, what do you plan to discuss?

– Beside participating in the meetings of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin, I have planned my own contacts with a whole range of the forum’s participants, including the Prime Minister of Lebanon Najib Mikati and the President of the 67th Session of the United Nations General Assembly Vuk Jeremic. I have just had a conversation with the Administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Helen Clark. We discussed the prospects of our interaction in building up Russia’s contribution to international development. I will have a talk with the President of the Iraqi Kurdistan region Masoud Barzani, some other meetings. Never a dull moment.

– The news currently discussed by everybody is the speech of the U.S. President Barack Obama in Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate and his proposition to cut by one-third the American and the Russian nuclear arsenals. What is your assessment of this initiative?

– During the meeting of the Russian President with the U.S. President on the sidelines of the summit of the Group of Eight in Lough Erne, Northern Ireland, Mr. Obama said that in his speech in Berlin he was planning to announce that Americans had analyzed the factors that needed to be taken into account to support deterrence measures. They have come to a conclusion that they may cut one-third of their arsenal without undermining deterrence capabilities. Only in case Russia does the same, of course.

We have explained to the Americans many times – and the President of Russia Vladimir Putin confirmed it to Mr. Obama – that the main thing for us now is to implement the New START Treaty that has been signed and ratified. It should be implemented in the course of several years before we reach the limits set out in it.

We also drew attention to the fact that nuclear weapons – strategic offensive arms – are not the only factor affecting global parity and strategic stability. At least in the near future, they are and will be affected by defensive strategic missile-defense systems, and the plans – actively implemented by the Americans – to create non-nuclear strategic arms, which, though they are probably more humane compared to nuclear bombs inasmuch as they do not result in radioactive contamination, are more effective than nuclear arms in military terms. Americans also have plans to bring their weapons into space, while Russia is against it. We proposed a draft agreement on that issue at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva together with China. Let us not forget that the United States significantly leaves us behind in the number of traditional armaments.

We calmly state evident things and propose to have a talk on strategic stability in general, taking into account all the factors affecting it. Against this background (if we observe all conditions, of course), we can talk about further cuts, however, not in the bilateral format, but involving other countries having nuclear weapons. This is because certain further steps mentioned by the U.S. President Barack Obama would bring us to a level of armaments some other nuclear states have.

– How does Russia assess the situation with missile defense (AMD)? European AMD plans are not canceled, just slightly modified. Currently, projects for Alaska have emerged as a response to North Korea’s having missiles.

– The modifications made several months ago actually mean that at this stage the Americans are opting out of the fourth phase of AMD system deployment in Europe and compensating it by deploying additional interceptors in Alaska and creating another positioning area on their eastern coast. We have analyzed everything as a package and have come to a conclusion that we remain concerned – the system remains global, and the deployment of its components is being planned and is taking place, generally speaking, around our borders. Objectively, it is indeed so.

Therefore, as President Vladimir Putin said at the press conference in Lough Erne summarizing the results of the summit of the Group of Eight and his meeting with Barack Obama, in general, we certainly perceive the proposition of the U.S. President about higher and even full transparency of these plans in a positive way. We have to think over how to do it and how this idea may take shape in the form of practical agreements. We intend to work out these ideas.

I repeat, we remain concerned, and, in any event, we need to develop measures to prevent the disruption of the strategic balance. The President of Russia has sincerely told his American colleague about it. However, we are not against having more clarity in the development of this system.

– The situation in Syria is certainly the top topic now. A summit of the Group of Eight was held this week, and it has already been called “icy,” meaning that its tone was icy. In your opinion, will you be able to attain any progress on the Syrian peace process in the negotiations among Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom?

– There always are (and certainly will be) personalities seeking only quarrels in any development of events and expressing prophecies and hand-wringing in regards to any forthcoming contacts of state leaders.

Our position, indeed, differs considerably, but not as to its final goals, but rather the means of attaining them, because neither Russia, the United States or Europe, nor any other normal states, including the Arab region states and Muslim states in general, wish Syria to repeat the path of Iraq, where the American intervention and the ensuing occupation was followed by the actual expulsion of Sunnis from all even slightly significant institutions and the transfer of all of the power to Shiites. We need to correct this process in some way now. We need to search for ways to let Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, and Christians who live there as well – though their numbers were reduced threefold from 1.5 million to 500 thousand people – to live in their country and the political system that enforces equality.

As to Syria, we all understand and are convinced that we need to keep that country’s territorial integrity, its sovereignty, and its multi-ethnic and multi-religious character, where rights of religious and ethnic minorities are respected, and where they feel safe and comfortable. But how do we attain this goal? We are convinced that this is possible by political means only. The President of Russia has confirmed it again at the summit of the Group of Eight.

It seems that they agree with us. The purpose of the Russian-American initiative is to hold an international conference, and everybody supports it. However, in practice, we see certain actions, the purpose of which in fact is to disrupt this initiative. For example, immediately after it was proposed, the U.N. General Assembly resolution was put forward describing the situation in an absolutely unilateral way, laying the blame only upon the Syrian government and turning a blind eye to the outrages of the militants and the fact that terrorist organizations like Djebhat an-Nusra are gaining more influence on the opposition side. This resolution has been literally forced in, even though the majority of countries did not want to support it and abstained (about 80 countries). Because of that, the resolution had more pro votes than contra votes.

Even this was not enough for them. Several anti-Syrian resolutions were brought to the U.N. Human Rights Council, where all the sins were “thrown” upon the government, and the opposition was portrayed in a positive light. An interesting thing is that the United States played a leading role in all these cases along with the Persian Gulf countries. I asked the Secretary of State John Kerry as to how this could be explained and whether Washington had changed its attitude to the need for convening a conference. He told me that those who worked in New York and Geneva to promote these resolutions allegedly did not report their actions to him. I do not know what manner they work in, but we are facing an objective reality. This does not help us create an atmosphere for convening the conference.

The same concerns the statements, that there is “convincing” proof of the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime that we keep hearing. U.S. experts visited Russia recently; before that our British and French colleagues showed us their findings. In all these cases, we have found nothing that would hold water. Take for example the statements of Carla Del Ponte, the former Chief Prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal and a member of the independent international commission for monitoring and investigating reported human rights abuses in Syria. She asserted that she had confirmation of the use of chemical poisonous agents by militants of the opposition on March 19. She interrogated witnesses; she received data from them and from the victims. It was this episode that the Syrian government asked U.N. experts to investigate. In response, Syrian authorities received a request that they were ready to send experts only in case they will be provided unlimited access to any location, any site, any citizen in SAR – irrespective of the position he or she occupies (i.e. it is a request to “lie down under a mandate” prepared for Iraq at some point). By the way, Carla Del Ponte claims that no other uses of chemical weapons are known.

Moreover, a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which has access to all regions of Syria and is working actively in solving humanitarian problems with the assistance of the Syrian government, made a statement that despite the fact that the Committee is present in all the territory of the country, he has no information about any uses of chemical weapons by the Syrian authorities. Then the question is: why do they need to advance this topic, at the same time refusing to investigate a specific episode at the request of the Syrian government? It seems that somebody wants to collect as many as possible “proofs” in the form of General Assembly resolutions, U.N. Human Rights Council actions, as well as careless statements about chemical weapons constantly advanced by the mass media, to be able to say at some stage: that’s it, the “red line” has been crossed, and if the U.N. Security Council does not want to solve the problem, we will do it ourselves. I simply cannot make any other conclusions when I assess all these events.

– The statement that the “red line” was crossed has already been made. The alleged convincing proof of the use of chemical weapons was followed by appeals to establish a “no-fly zone” above Syria. Americans sent F-16’s, Patriot air defense missile systems, and marines to Jordan, to the border of that country with Syria, and said that they would stay there after training, if the decision to establish a “no-fly zone” was made…

– We asked our U.S. friends what this all was about. The U.S. mass media reported that Washington was developing a plan for a “no-fly zone” irrespective of whether the U.N. Security Council approved it. We asked our U.S. colleagues this question on the sidelines of the summit of the Group of Eight. They did not reply to our inquiry, which raises additional questions for us. Moreover, it was announced that the United States was considering supplying the opposition with weapons. The E.U. made the same decision, though it has postponed armament supplies until August 1 of this year.

There are many different things in the press now. Not everything is authoritative. I do not remember which Syrian newspaper recently published an article stating that large number of heavy weapons, including sub-artillery, artillery, and portable surface-to-air missile systems are supplied to militants through the territory of Turkey by the United States and Saudi Arabia – as you know, these are very dangerous weapons for civil aviation.

As they say, “where there is smoke, there must be fire.” It is a fact that the Syrian army does not fight people armed only with guns. Otherwise, the outcome would be different. We see fierce fighting for each and every city. It means that the opponents of the Syrian army are well-armed and trained.

– We know that the Americans and the British admit that the allies of Al-Qaeda, such terrorists groups as Djebhat an-Nusra that you have just mentioned, are really fighting among the opposition. At the same time, the United States and the United Kingdom have expressed their readiness to arm the opposition by cancelling the embargo. So, what’s with the war on international terrorism that the Americans have been pursuing for all these years?

– That is the worst of it. We need to give credit to our partners, because they understand the danger of the line they are about to step across.

Djebhat an-Nusra is an effectively-functioning unit of the armed opposition. The overwhelming majority of armaments that are already supplied or are going to be supplied to Syria, will be distributed through this unit – I have no doubts about it. It is the most coordinated and the most disciplined unit. Our colleagues understand this.

Moreover, hardly anybody has paid attention to one pertinent passage in the communique adopted by the leaders of the Group of Eight. The part related to Syria contains proper words about the need to solve the crisis only in a political way, to convene an international conference for a complete implementation of the Geneva Agreement of June 2012, including the establishment of a transitional governing body on the basis of mutual consent of the government and the opposition. The document contains strict warnings in respect of any attempts to use chemical weapons, and, by the way, a passage regarding the need to report to the U.N. Security Council on all instances of their use. I think that the evaluations provided, in particular by Carla Del Ponte, would be very valuable to the U.N. Security Council.

Besides, the Syrian section of the communique contains very strong statements appealing to the government and the opposition to unite and remove terrorists from Syria. This is one of the key issues we have to solve. An interesting fact is that they talk little about it. This is a strong message decisively targeted at combating terrorism, which was signed by the leaders of the member-states of the Group of Eight.

By the way, Syrian authorities have already stated that they support the conclusions of the Group of Eight and confirm their readiness to participate in the conference. We still do not know what is needed to make the opposition act in the same way.

– David Cameron and Barack Obama say that there are people among the opposition who are ready to promote democracy in Syria, deal with civil liberties and start negotiating. Do you know anything about them?

– No, we know nothing about them. We know almost all figures of the opposition, both within the National Coalition and the other units, including the National Coordinating Committee and Syria’s Kurdish Supreme Council. The figures of the “coalition”, upon whom the Americans, the Europeans, and the countries of the Persian Gulf place their bets, refuse to participate in the conference, unless the government fully hands over its powers to this coalition. This is a direct affront to Russia and the United States, because our proposition about the conference entails fulfilling the agreements reached last year in Geneva, which state clearly that the transitional governing body is to be formed by the government and the opposition on the basis of mutual consent. The conference must be convened for this particular purpose, rather than for the purpose of requesting the government to capitulate.

– When can this conference be held? The President of France Francois Hollande stated that he would gladly meet the newly elected President of Iran there. What is your take on this? Don’t we have to wait until he takes office?

– Iran must be invited like all other neighbors of Syria directly affected by this crisis – there are many refugees in their territories and they generally suffer from instability.

France is one of the countries that were totally against the participation of Iran in the conference. We can only welcome that our French colleagues have changed their opinion.

As to deadlines, we discussed this question at the summit. We proposed to set these deadlines, even in two or three months – it does not matter. The main thing is to have some specific goal on which we have to work. Western partners asked not to do this. Eventually, what we’ve included in the document was that the conference should be convened “as soon as possible.” You know the cost of these definitions, but we will certainly try.

The main thing now – and probably this is the main reason why our Western partners did not mention a specific date – is that they are not at all convinced that they will be able to “sell” it to the opposition.

– What do you know about the timelines for the implementation of the contract for supplying the C-300 military systems to Syria?

– We respect our contracts and perform our obligations under them. The contracts have not been performed to the end yet.

– When can we expect a positive decision on the issue of the presence of Russian peacekeepers on Golan Heights?

– As you know, it depends on the readiness of the Syrian and the Israeli governments to agree to this proposal because the initial 1974 mandate of this peacekeeping operation states that the document is approved as agreed upon between Syria and Israel. This agreement stated that the parties agreed to exclude permanent U.N. Security Council members from the contingent that will form the U.N. disengagement mission. But it was long ago, at the height of the Cold War. I do not see any reasons now why Russian peacekeepers would be unacceptable for Syria or Israel.

By the way, the Syrian government has already supported our participation in this peace-keeping operation. Israel has not announced its decision yet.

The Fiji contingent is expected to fill in the void created with the removal of the Austrian contingent. However, our proposal is still on the table. It seems to me that this would be a good solution. Russia has good relations with Syria and Israel, we are interested in that these two countries, where many of our nationals live, feel safe. Our peacekeepers will fit perfectly for this particular operation.

– The authorities in Iran are changing. What is your assessment of the elections that have taken place? Western countries were pleased with the personality of the elected President of Iran Hassan Rouhani – he was the only candidate who said that he wished to normalize relations with the West. Can we expect a change in Iran’s nuclear program?

– We worked with all the presidents of Iran – the predecessors of Hassan Rouhani, who was now elected. By the way, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is expected to participate in the Gas Exporting Countries Forum at summit level, which will be held in Moscow at the beginning of July. This will probably be the last contact with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President of Iran.

Hassan Rouhani enters office at the beginning of August. He is actually talking about the need to search for a solution for Iran’s nuclear program more actively and creatively. We welcome this. At this stage, during the tenure of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, we felt Iran’s readiness to discuss the concerns we all know well for a long time seriously and substantively. In particular, during the last P5+1 meetings, Iran expressed readiness to resolve the problem of uranium enrichment, taking into account that if its scientists stop heavy enrichment activities, the international community will take steps to weaken the unilateral and the multilateral sanctions. I hope that we will keep this pace. We are in favor of holding a round of negotiations in the P5+1 format with international mediators and Iranian representatives as soon as possible after the new President of Iran takes office. In general, we expect to continue the centuries old tradition of neighborly re-lations with our Iranian counterparts.