Remarks to the Press by Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia after Security Council consultations on Syria
Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia: You heard the statement by the President (of the Security Council). It was elements that we all agreed on. Indeed, we are concerned about things that are mentioned in those elements. What else?
Q.: President of the United States has described the situation about which you just expressed concern in a joint Security Council statement as ‘strategically brilliant’. Would you agree?
A.: I have to analyze the statement. I do not know what he meant by it. Is it strategically brilliant because the U.S. is withdrawing which he insisted upon or because of something else? We have to see what he meant by it.
Q.: President of the Security Council’s statement fell short of calling on Turkey to stop the operation. Basically, this is not what you and U.S. is asking for. Is it because Russia objected to it?
A.: We did not even discuss it, frankly. We did not discuss this issue. When I spoke at the Security Council, I said that this situation is not linear. It was not born in a vacuum. Many things had preceded what happened. You cannot talk about only one element of the picture, which is much broader. I said it last time I stood before you here that we had warned long time ago that those experiments with Kurds that were staged in the North-East (of Syria) would not lead anywhere. We said they would not lead to the real interests of Kurds being taken into account. We were warning Kurds about it, but unfortunately they learned it the hard way.
We said: the best thing for you is to go and engage in dialogue and negotiations with Damascus, which finally happened, but you know under what circumstances it happened.
Q.: Ambassador, did you discuss return of ISIS fighters to Europe or to your countries?
A.: I mentioned that nobody should pretend that this is an issue of Syria and Iraq only. As one Persian proverb says, ‘that property belongs to the owner’. I think those countries whose nationals are FTFs in Syria should be returned to procedural things with them back in countries of origin. This would be only fair, and this is something we incessantly call for.
Q.: Are you calling on Turkey to stop its operation now?
A.: You know that President Putin is in continuous dialogue with President Erdoğan. They spoke before, they also spoke today. President Erdoğan is coming to Moscow soon. Of course, this issue will be discussed there. The Turkish side tells us that they will respect sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria and that the final aim will be to ensure that Syrian territory is sovereign and fully territorially integral.
We understand Turkish national security concerns, but we believe that the operation that they are conducting should be proportionate to the aims that they declared.
Q.: Does it have any bearing on the talks scheduled for 30 October in Geneva?
A.: Members of the Security Council expressed their concern that it should not. We hope it will not have any bearing on the talks. Everybody is interested that the Constitutional Committee should start on time and that events in Syria should not either hamper or affect or jeopardize the Committee’s work.
Thank you.
