Lavrov: There is good opportunity to agree with US on militants’ exit from Aleppo

Hamburg, SANA-Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov affirmed that there is a good opportunity to agree with the United States on the exit of militants from Aleppo.
“If the US experts again do not change their mind and put nothing new on the table, there is a very good opportunity to agree on how to finalize the settlement in eastern Aleppo by the withdrawal of all militants from there,” Lavrov said in a press conference on Friday.

Responding to a question about the continuation of hostilities in Aleppo despite the initiative launched by Moscow on Thursday to stop the fighting in the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo and get civilians out, Lavrov said: “I have not said that the fighting has been stopped, completely ceased. I said that they it has been suspended yesterday for a certain period in order to help the civilian population to leave, the people who wanted to do so,” adding that the combat operations will stop in the humanitarian pauses until militants leave the eastern neighborhoods.

“Everybody has understood it, our US counterparts have understood it,” the minister added.

Lavrov said he cannot be sure that “there won’t be any surprise again. That’s because it is very unclear how the US side behaves itself at the negotiations with us on Syria,” he added.

“It is another weird peculiarity of the US policy towards Syria and towards Aleppo that is when the left hand is doing something constructive whereas the right hand is opening the sluice gate for pumping weapons to militants,” Lavrov said in reply to a question about if the US decision to lift the embargo on arms supplies to militants in Syria will influence the Russian-US talks on Syria.

“I do not think it will have a significant impact on the situation in Eastern Aleppo as in Eastern Aleppo the bandits are surrounded and will hardly ever get an opportunity to get reinforcements,” Lavrov said. “However, from the point of view of the further development of the Syrian situation, certainly, replenishment of arms can pose a major risk as practically in the overwhelming majority of cases the weapons delivered to the so-called moderate opposition go to terrorists.”

Manar al-Frieh/Manal