PRESS RELEASE
Obama Won’t Receive a Russian Military Delegation on Coordination
Oct. 13, 2015 (EIRNS)—Washington has refused to receive a proposed Russian military delegation, headed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, to discuss coordinated action in the fight against terrorism in Syria, RT reported yesterday.
Foreign Minister Lavrov told the Russian Duma yesterday,
"We have proposed to Americans what President Vladimir Putin informed the public about yesterday; namely, sending a delegation of military experts to Moscow to agree on a whole number of joint steps, [and] afterwards, we would be ready to send a high-level delegation led by Prime Minister Medvedev to Washington,"
Lavrov told the Russian Parliament on Thursday.
RT reported,
"Today we were told that they [the Americans] will not be able to send a delegation to Moscow. At the same time, they are unable to receive our delegation in Washington,"
he added.
Lavrov reported that Moscow
"invited our other partners to take part in activities of the [Baghdad-based] information center, so that everyone could see the full picture; so that everyone is on the same page, and to avoid any misunderstanding, the response was unconstructive. They said, ‘Why in Iraq? It is not safe there.’ We explained that according to our estimates the Baghdad Center can operate in very favorable conditions. But, if there is a wish to coordinate actions to some other place, we are ready for that,"
Lavrov said.
"The agreement on the military-technical measures to prevent incidents in the air, which has been practically achieved, will start working from day to day, I hope. Today the finishing touches will be given to coordinate all of its points,"
Lavrov told the State Duma.
"And then we are ready to sit down and discuss things, with all the cards in our hands: where THEY think terrorists are, where WE think they could be... I’m sure that if we work honestly, those evaluations will coincide. [emphases in original] We should all start with showing our cards, both in [the] direct and indirect sense," the minister stressed... I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t sit down and discuss [these] things. Perhaps, the West thinks that Islamic State and Assad should just deplete each other,"
he said.
"But I wouldn’t like to think that our Western colleagues are being guided by such ‘simplified’ logic."
