You're reading: Lavrov: U.S. reaction to terror attacks in Damascus a direct justification of terrorism

Moscow - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has described Washington's position on the recent bombings in Damascus as attempts to justify terrorism. 

“It is a open justification of terrorism. How can this be understood?” he said at a press conference in Moscow on Wednesday.

Lavrov was commenting on U.S. Department of State officials’ statements that the terror attacks in Damascus came as no surprise in the context of the regime’s operations.

Lavrov also expressed surprise that the UN Security Council had refused to condemn those terror attacks. Washington’s UN envoy Susan Rice said that the terror attacks in Damascus point to the necessity to adopt a resolution on Syria in compliance with Article 7 of the UN Charter which allows sanctions up to use of force.

“Generally speaking, it is a horrible position. I cannot find words to express our attitude to it,” Lavrov said.

Information available to Russia suggests, he said, that militants seized several checkpoints and Turkish property on the Syrian-Turkish border.

“Looting of Turkish property was reported, at least on the border with Turkey. According to some sources, this property had been seized by groups directly connected with Al Qaeda, not by the Syrian Free Army, however one may look at it,” Lavrov said.

“We are verifying these reports now. If seizures of territories by terrorists are supported by our partners, we would then like to get an answer to the question: What is their position on Syria and what are they after in that country?” he said.

Russia abides by the Geneva Communique, reached by the Action Group on Syria, while Western partners would like to redraw it and they submitted proposals to the US Security Council which the collective document did not have, Lavrov said.