01:06USA: Lavrov warns of extremist wave in Syria and Kenya
USA: Lavrov warns of extremist wave in Syria and Kenya
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov warned that a policy of uncritical support for anti-government movements in the Middle East and Africa risks giving cover to the rise of anti-democratic forces during a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Friday.
"The desire to portray in a simplified way the developments in the Arab worlds as the struggle of democracies against tyrannies or the good against the evil has long obscured the problems associated with the rising wave of extremism which spills over to other regions today as well," said Lavrov. "The terrorist attacks in Kenya have demonstrated all the gravity of this threat."
"It is common knowledge that the jihadist groups that comprise quite a few radicals coming from all parts of the world are the most combat-capable units of the opposition. The goals they pursue have nothing to do with democracy and are based on intolerance and aimed at destruction of secular states and establishment of caliphates. It is hard to call as far-sighted the policy which in substance either mounts military persistence as in Mali or provides to the same groups support as in Syria."
Military intervention by Western states against the government of Bashar al-Assad was staved off last week with a Russian-sponsored plan to allow the country to hand over its stocks of chemical weapons to international stewardship.
01:06NONE: UN pool
USA: Lavrov warns of extremist wave in Syria and Kenya
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov warned that a policy of uncritical support for anti-government movements in the Middle East and Africa risks giving cover to the rise of anti-democratic forces during a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Friday.
"The desire to portray in a simplified way the developments in the Arab worlds as the struggle of democracies against tyrannies or the good against the evil has long obscured the problems associated with the rising wave of extremism which spills over to other regions today as well," said Lavrov. "The terrorist attacks in Kenya have demonstrated all the gravity of this threat."
"It is common knowledge that the jihadist groups that comprise quite a few radicals coming from all parts of the world are the most combat-capable units of the opposition. The goals they pursue have nothing to do with democracy and are based on intolerance and aimed at destruction of secular states and establishment of caliphates. It is hard to call as far-sighted the policy which in substance either mounts military persistence as in Mali or provides to the same groups support as in Syria."
Military intervention by Western states against the government of Bashar al-Assad was staved off last week with a Russian-sponsored plan to allow the country to hand over its stocks of chemical weapons to international stewardship.