Interfax: Putin hopes new initiatives on Syria will help settle the crisis

(Interfax – MOSCOW, June 12, 2013) Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he hopes that the recent peace initiatives, including the Russian-U.S. idea to convene an international conference, will provide the chance for settling the crisis in Syria.

“I really hope that the initiatives that were proposed, among others, by the Egyptian president, with whom we recently met in Sochi and he proposed more active involvement of all countries of the region. And also those proposed by the British prime minister, who said it is necessary to engage permanent UN Security Council members more actively, and those proposed by the Russian Foreign Ministry and the U.S. Department of State, on which we are working now. We hope that all this common work will finally provide a chance for a settlement in the country,” Putin said while visiting a new Russia Today TV studio on Tuesday.

“We are not advocates of the incumbent (Syrian) government and incumbent President Bashar al-Assad himself,” Putin said.

“We absolutely don’t want to interfere in the conflict between various teachings of Islam. This is an internal affair of Islam itself,” he said.

Russia maintains “very good relations with the Arab world, and, thank God, we have good relations with Iran,” he said.

The reason why the region is unstable and is plagued by conflicts is that “some people from the outside think that, if the one-size-fits-all approach is applied to this whole region, which some like very much and which some call democracy, then peace and order will settle there,” he said.

“But this is absolutely not so, and nothing can be done there without taking into account this region’s history, traditions, and specifics. It is especially wrong to interfere from the outside,” he said.

“We want durable peace and order to settle in Syria and the legitimate interests and rights of all people living there to be guaranteed. And therefore, our position has always been in favor of first letting the people decide how to form the governance system in Syria and how to guarantee the legitimate rights, interests and security of all those living there, and only then switching to some systemic changes based on these agreements, rather than doing the opposite and first ousting everyone and then plunging the whole country in chaos,” Putin said.

“Here is what our partners can’t answer us. Take one of the key organizations within the so-called armed opposition: the al-Nusra Front. The U.S. State Department has recognized it as terrorist and linked to al-Qaeda – in fact, it doesn’t even conceal this. And will it be part of the government in the future? We are told: no. And I say: will you take a newspaper and drive it away? No. But what’s going to be done? We don’t know. But this is not a joke, this is serious stuff,” he said.

“Or take another example. On the one hand, they support some organizations fighting against Assad in Syria. And on the other, these same countries supporting them there (in Syria) are fighting them in Mali. These are not just the same organizations, these are the same people,” he said.

“And where’s the logic? What is this going to lead to? These are not just empty phrases and empty words,” he said.