Russia is rather concerned with Syria’s integrity than with supporting the Middle Eastern country’s leadership, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a recent interview with The Washington Post.
Lavrov spoke with the US newspaper’s Lally Weymouth at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.
“We are not wedded to anyone in Syria. We are not concerned with any personality. We are concerned with keeping Syria in one piece, territorially integral, sovereign, independent and secular, where the rights of all groups, ethnic and others, are fully respected,” he said.
“That is the goal which I believe the United States also has. The more we try to find common approaches to get there, the more efficient our cooperation will be,” Lavrov said.
Russia remains one of the world’s most influential supporters of President Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria, where over two years of fighting between government and opposition forces has claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people, according to UN data.
The administration of US President Barack Obama has accused Assad’s government of being responsible for an August 21 chemical weapons attack outside Damascus that Washington claims left more than 1,400 dead.
