Lavrov: We have common positions on Syria, Ukraine and Iran

After meeting his counterparts from several countries in Geneva, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said they had common positions on urgent international issues, particularly, on Ukraine, Syria and Iran.

He said that he had met with US Secretary General John Kerry, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Dutch Foreign Minister, the UN Human Rights Commissioner and UN and Arab League Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura.

“We have discussed the key concerns of the world community. One of them is certainly Ukraine. With Mr. Kerry we were unanimous on the need to implement the Feb 12 Minsk agreements. I asked him to persuade Kiev to meet its obligations, this including amnesty, constitutional reforms and special status for Donbass,” Lavrov said.

He said that on Syria there was unanimity with Kerry, Mistura and Zarif that the Geneva Communiqué June 30 2012 is the strongest basis for further efforts to resume intra-Syrian negotiations.

“Terrorism is having a destructive effect on the situation in the Middle East and North Africa. The ISIS and other terrorist groups are creating caliphate. In the occupied territories, they are imposing heresy and killing other ethnic and religious groups. Our position here is that we must fight this challenge together on the basis of the international law under the aegis of the UN and its Security Council,” Lavrov said.

He said that with Kerry and the Iranian foreign minister he had discussed questions concerning Iran’s nuclear program. “We registered serious progress in the talks with Iran and discussed our further steps to ensure desirable results by specified deadlines,” Lavrov said.