FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

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Lavrov Charges, U.S. Opting for ‘Regime-Change’ Instead of Fighting Terrorists in Syria

Aug. 29, 2018 (EIRNS)—In a Moscow press conference today, following his meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Abdel al-Jubeir, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reported that U.S. officials have rejected the facts Russia has presented on a planned false-flag chemical weapons attack planned for Idlib, in Syria, while having provided nothing to substantiate their claim that Russia’s information is false, Sputnik reported him as saying.

Idlib is the last stronghold of Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists, Lavrov said, and they must be excised. Yet the U.S. rejection of evidence of a staged chemical weapons attack, plus threats made against the Damascus government, appear aimed, not at defeating terrorists, but in driving for “regime-change”—much as was done in Iraq and Libya. This is exactly the same policy carried out by the Obama Administration, Lavrov observed, which used all possible means to protect Jabhat al-Nusra, in hopes of using it eventually against the Bashar al-Assad government.

While minimizing the risks to the civilian population, Lavrov continued, it is essential that an operation be launched against the “festering abscess” of terrorists in Idlib,

“who are trying to gamble on the status of the de-escalation zone, to hold civilians as human shields, and bring the armed formations ready for negotiations with the Syrian government to their knees.”

According to TASS, he underscored that Russia is ready to cooperate with the U.S. to resolve all problems in Syria, Libya, and other countries in the region, but said that Washington is reluctant.

“We advocate that all problems in this region and other regions of the world should be resolved collectively. We are open to cooperation with the United States and other Western countries, as well with the countries of the region to settle all the problems that exist there.”