ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE: Valeriy Sharifulin/TASS
Russia’s principled stance is that a compromise with terrorists in Syria’s Idlib is impossible and that they must be eliminated, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin said on February 17.
“Idlib is a serious problem, this is probably a major concentration of terrorists in the region and maybe beyond its borders,” he said on the sidelines of the discussion on the Syrian settlement at the Munich Security Conference, according to TASS. “Our principled stance is no to any compromise with terrorists, they must be eliminated.”
Vershinin recalled that 90% of Idlib’s territory is controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) terrorist group, which is excluded from the de-escalation agreement.
“It’s impossible to say that we can make peace with Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists and similar organizations,” he said adding that Ankara, Teheran and Moscow will think about the ways in order not to harm or put in danger the civilians.
Regarding the situation in northeastern Syria, the diplomat said that the dialogue between the Kurds and the Damascus government will be the best solution.
“Various options were named of what can be done after or in case the US leaves Syria or if there are no foreign forces in northeast Syria, which were also mentioned here. We believe that probably the best option here would be solving these problems through dialogue between the Kurds and Damascus,” he said. “Certainly, we know about those problems which exist in relations between Damascus and the Kurds. We would support this dialogue, this is the path that should be chosen.”
