Russian Foreign Minister Hammers Interventionist Foreign Policy in Front of US Sec. of State

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In a joint press conference from Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson attempted to show the world that even amid the tension between the two nations, they could still have dialogue on how to peacefully move forward. But that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t any stone throwing.

With most of the tension between Washington and Moscow hanging over the interactions of the US in Syria, a long time Russian ally, the question about how the nations work together, when they look so far apart inevitably came up. After all, it was only a short time ago, that Tillerson stated that the reign of Bashar al-Assad, the President of Syria, is ending.

“We want to create a future for Syria that is stable and secure,” Tillerson said. “Russia can be part of that future and play an important role or Russia can maintain its alliance with this group which we believe is not going to serve Russia’s interest longer term.”

“Stockpiles and continued use demonstrate that Russia has failed in its responsibility to deliver on its 2013 commitment,” he continued. “It is unclear whether Russia failed to take this obligation seriously or Russia has been incompetent, but this distinction doesn’t much matter to the dead. We can’t let this happen again.”

“It is clear to all of us that reign of the Assad family is coming to an end, but the question of how that ends and the transition itself could be very important in our view to the durability, the stability inside a unified Syria.”

When Lavrov was asked about the situation, he railed into what he called the foreign policies of the west, and “NATO” countries, criticizing their interventionism of “this or that dictator, an authoritarian or totalitarian.” He even stated, “A successful ouster of a dictator is for me very hard to remember, if you have any example I’d be glad if you could share them with me.”

“I for one would like to say I do not think that Russia and the US are so great a distance that it cannot be bridged on many issues of the International agenda, both in regard to Syria and Ukraine it’s not impossible. In our introductory remarks with Rex Tillerson we mentioned the agreements that are related, not just to preserving, but to intensifying communication channels with regard to Syria and Ukraine. As for Syria, Bashar al-Assad, we have had sort of a historical background. Rex said he is a ‘new guy’ and that he prefers not looking into history, but the thing is, the world is built in such a fashion that if we do not take lessons from the past we will hardly be able to achieve success in the present.”

“And I recalled certain situations when groups of countries, primarily in the west, NATO countries, were sort of fixated on eliminating this or that dictator, an authoritarian or totalitarian leader, that to oust president of ex-Yugoslavia NATO launched a war in 1999 in gross violation of the UN charter, as well as the Helsinki Final Act. The TV station was bombed which incidentally is a military crime, however you interpret the Geneva Conventions, presidential areas were shelled, the Chinese Embassy was also attacked, civil trains and bridges bombed, the shelling went on for three months and then they run out of targets that could be qualified as dual-use facilities.”

“There was another dictator, Saddam Hussein who was hanged after the invasion, we know how this invasion was justified, since then I think Tony Blair was the only one to repent, publically admitting that it had been a fake, all the grounds for the Iraq invasion. There was another when Muammar Gaddafi, it had been said that there had been no place for this dictator in his country. It was said that democracy would prevail. But we know full well what is happening in Libya right now. The Libyan State is all but nonexistent. Our president talked about that yesterday with the Italian President. Right now we are trying to restore Libyan statehood through the process of national reconciliation, we are trying to put an end to the situation in which this country turned into a channel of human trafficking, as your media reported today.”

“Incidentally there are other examples not so risend. The President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, there has been a warrant for his arrest issued by the international court and several days later the Obama administration decided that in order to settle this problem sudan had to be split into two parts. South Sudan was established and the Obama administration help them secure al-Bashir’s agreement to this splitting. Pres al-Bashir held up his end of the bargain, he cooperated, Sudan was split into two parts in accordance with Obama administration’s plan and then Washington insisted that sanctions should be created against the nation they helped create. So this fixation on trying to oust this or that dictator, an authoritarian, or totalitarian leader is well known to us and we know how it ends. A successful ouster of a dictator is for me very hard to remember, if you have any example id be glad if you could share them with me.“

Based on his statements, it appears that Russia has no intentions on cooperating with the deposing of the Syrian President, and it also appears that the Russian government, and Lavrov specifically, is not afraid to confront the United States on foreign policy.

Sec. of State Tillerson did not immediately address any of the contentions made by Lavrov, as the two moved on to other matters.