MOSCOW – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and French Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development Jean-Marc Ayrault held a telephone conversation at the initiative of the French side on Nov. 17, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
The interlocutors discussed the situation in Syria, implementation of the Minsk Agreements on Donbas, Middle East settlement, Karabakh problem and Russian-French relations.
During the discussion on the situation in Syria Lavrov focused on the need to avoid unilateral actions, which provoke the escalation of the conflict, illusiveness of the hopes for genuine movement forward without effective division of the Syrian opposition and extremists, as well as a reliable blockade of the border with the countries, through which replenishments for the terrorist groups are being delivered,” the Russian foreign political agency said in a statement on its website.
“It was underlined that groundless accusations against Russia for carrying out the strikes on the civilian population, as well as the creation of the information blockade around the western coalition’s operation to liberate Mosul, are unacceptable,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
The ministers also discussed the ‘Normandy Four’ priority tasks in the context of implementing the Minsk Agreements to overcome the Ukrainian crisis, putting an emphasis on the need to implement their political part, the Russian Foreign Ministry also said.
The Russian foreign political agency said “the issues of facilitating the Middle East settlement and the activity by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs (Russia, the United States, France) to seek resolution to the Nagorno Karabakh problem were touched upon.”
The Russian and French foreign political agency heads compared notes on the current agenda of bilateral Russian-French relations, the ministry said.
