Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova’s reply to a media question on planned parliamentary elections in Syria

Question: Damascus has announced its intention to hold parliamentary elections in Syria on April 13 of this year. Could you please comment on this?

Maria Zakharova: Indeed, the Syrian capital has announced its intention to hold parliamentary elections to the People’s Council of the Syrian Arab Republic on April 13 of this year.

I’d like to emphasise in this regard that Russia is fully committed to the agreements on the content and stages of the political settlement of the Syrian crisis in accordance with the decisions of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) and UN Security Council Resolution 2254.

In other words, we will continue insisting that UN-sponsored full-scale and inclusive intra-Syrian talks be held as soon as possible in Geneva with a focus on the formation of a joint governing structure by the Syrian Government and the opposition and the subsequent drafting of the Constitution, which must serve as the basis for holding general elections.

Russia’s principled approach remains unchanged.

At the same time, we have the right to expect our ISSG partners to work towards forming a genuinely representative delegation of the Syrian opposition for talks with the Syrian Government. In turn, we’ll continue vigorously insisting on this ourselves.

February 24, 2016