Speech by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his answers to questions from the mass media during the press conference summarising the results of the negotiations with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Honduras Mireya Agüero de Corrales, Moscow, 14 October 2013

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are glad to welcome the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Honduras, Mireya Agüero de Corrales to Moscow. This is the first official visit in the history of our bilateral relations by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Honduras to the Russian Federation.

We welcome the decision of the Government of Honduras to establish a permanent diplomatic representative office in Moscow, the opening ceremony for which will take place today. We see a confirmation of the disposition of the Honduranleaders, the President of the country, Pepe Lobo, towards comprehensive development of relations with the Russian Federation. This disposition meets with a positive response from us, as was confirmed by our negotiations today, during which we substantially discussed prospects of our interaction, and agreed on the activation of the contractual legal framework for our bilateral relations. This primarily refers to as speedy as possible termination of our work on the agreement on the foundations of the relations between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Honduras. We agreed to complete our preparations of the draft intergovernmental agreement on a visa free system in the shortest possible time (with its signature and entry into force almost the entire region of Latin America and the Caribbean will be covered by a regime of visa free travel of our nationals), as well as the work on the cooperation agreement for fighting illegal turnover of drugs, psychotropic substances and their precursors.

We focused special attention on activating the development of trade and economic ties. The ministers of finance and planning and external cooperation, as well as representatives from the business community of Honduras, came to Moscow together with Ms. Mireya Agüero de Corrales. We view such a composition of the delegation as a manifestation of a rather specific and decisive disposition of our partners to give impulse to our bilateral economic links, to define joint investment projects and to diversify mutual turnover of goods. This fully complies with Russian interests. The negotiations of the delegation from Honduras in the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation may become a good opportunity for the establishment of direct links at state level and in the sphere of business circles. It seems that we have created the framework for deepening our bilateral interaction quite fruitfully.

I will note our interest in the development of links in the area of education, science, culture, humanitarian cooperation, and youth exchange. We are interested in continuing our work for the promotion of Russian in Honduras.

Today we discussed the international agenda, and regional problems. We confirmed the proximity of our approaches, including the need for foundationsbased on the principles of the rule of international law, especially in the modern uneasy situation in the world, when a new polycentric system of international relations is being formed, and where the region of Latin America and the Caribbean becomes one of its backbones. We welcome the active and independent participation of the countries of this region in the solution of key issues of the further development of the world.

The Russian Federation is interested not just in monitoring projects implemented in Latin America in the area of processes of political and economic integration, but also in searching for areas of common interest, opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation with the participants. We speak in favour of the extension of links with countries of the region, including those which are part of the Central American Integration System (SICA). We agreed with the Minister that Honduras as a participant of this system will contribute to faster formation of the legal framework for the development of relations between the Russian Federation and this sub-regional structure.

We are grateful to the Republic of Honduras for their active support of the development of cooperation between the Russian Federation and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (SELAC). The extended committee of this promising association visited Moscow in May, and we concluded agreements for the promotion of our interaction. I repeat, we are grateful to Honduras for its readiness to contribute to the maximum concretisation of cooperation between Russia and SELAC.

I would like to express my satisfaction with the fact that during her visit to the Russian Federation,the Minister actively communicated with representatives of Russian civil society. It was interesting to watch the interview by Ms. Mireya Agüero de Corrales on the programme "Vesti nedeli". Tomorrow my colleague has a meeting in the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia. Many eminent people of the Republic of Honduras are graduates of this institution.

I am grateful to the Minister for these very promising negotiations and I am confident that our official and personal relations will continue.

Question: How does Russia intend to develop its relations with the Central American Integration System?

Sergey Lavrov: Once the Embassy of Honduras is opened, all the countries of Central America will be represented in Moscow. Russia is interested in the comprehensive development of relations with all the regional and sub-regional structures of Latin America and the Caribbean, amongst which the Central American Integration System occupies an important place. We are preparing a memorandum on the foundations of cooperation between Russia and the SICA, and we have agreed with the Minister that Honduras will support the speedy termination of this work. We will discuss methods of practical cooperation at the ministerial meeting which is planned to be held next year on the side-lines of the UNGA session or in the region. We will also be glad to see ministers of the countries that are parties to the SICA in our territory. We have specific plans. The main thing now is their practical implementation.

Question: If you will allow me, I will ask a question that is not related to this topic. George Sabra, the head of the largest organisation included inthe National Coalition of Opposition Forces, the Syrian National Council, announced that his organisation will not participate in Geneva-2 and is ready to leave the coalition, if any of its members go to Geneva. How would you comment on this?

Sergey Lavrov: Syria is always related to the topic, especially now.This problem depends on us all. This issue demonstrates not only the tangle of contradictions within the country, but also the profound destructive processes existingin the entire Middle East and North Africa region. If something goes wrong and a peaceful process does not materialise, we will feel the consequences far beyond this region. All of this is directly related to the way the global community may deal with the settlement of internal state conflicts in the modern world. International law and the central role of the UN are mandatory landmarks in such a situation.

The convening of the Geneva-2 international conference is a Russian-American initiative, which was proposed in Moscow on the 7 May during the visit of the head of the U.S. Department of State, John Kerry, and confirmed during our subsequent meetings, the last of which took place recently in Indonesia, and then on the side-lines of the APEC and EAS summits in Brunei.

We believe that we need to set the date for convening the conference as soon as possible, because any delays "play into the hands" of jihadists, radicals, extremists, terrorist groups, who strengthen their positions amongst those who fight Bashar al-Assad's regime with arms. There are real risks that they may dominate in many regions of Syria, where chemical weapons are currently being eliminated.

We all understand the threats related to the strengthening of positions of extremely radical extremist and jihadist elements. Let us not forget about the atrocities, committed by these groups against Christians and other minorities, as well as their own Islamic brothers, and the representatives of the Alawite community. The information about their lynching of women, children and the civil population in general were again publicised by the Human rights watch. Each day the convening of the international conference is delayed creates additional fuel for the continuation of this bloody war, and strengthens the positions of the most radical extremist forces.

The statement by George Sabra, who is the head of the Syrian National Council, which is part of the coalition, confirms yet again that we need to convene the conference as soon as possible. The main obstacle now is the inability of our partners at this stage to force the Syrian opposition they patronise to go to Geneva and sit down at the negotiation table,in order to determine ways of further exit from the crisis, including during the transitional period and the structures which will lead the preparation of a new constitution, elections, etc..

Our American partners assured us that they will combine everybody "under the umbrella" of the National Coalition for participation in the conference. John Kerry confirmed again that they are actively working on this, and we will see the results soon. However, there is still no result, but rather statements like that of George Sabra about the refusal to go to Geneva, and the threat to leave the National Coalition.

The National Coalition is losing its positions and influence. Not only the Syrian National Council, but also other fighting groups refuse to cooperate with it. Just recently, it was announced that more than 40 of such units were out of the control of the National Coalition and the Free Syrian Army and are joining to create the Army of Islam or the Islamic Front. There is information that these processes are actively supported by influential regional players.

We have been warning that there will be many obstacles on our way to Geneva-2for a long time, on the part of those who do not wish for any political process, and only wish to create reasons for a return to the scenarios of striking Syria to overthrow the regime. These warnings become very topical, and we expect that our American partners and other countries, which have not just influence on different opposition groups, but are stimulating them in all ways to continue their fight, are aware of their responsibility for the performance of their part of the work to convene Geneva-2. Against this backdrop, it is strange to hear statements from individual representatives of the U.S. Department of State that it is only important that Russia uses its influence on Damascus. As we say in Russian, it means "unfairly shifting the blame".

We do use our influence on Damascus and it gives good results. The same was earlier related to the consent of Damascus to accept the LAS observer mission, which was than withdrawn in a hurry, because it started to objectively report on events in the Syrian Arab Republic. This also relates to the fact that we positively influenced Damascus in connection with Kofi Annan's plan to deploy UN observers in Syria, who were withdrawn from there again not due to the fault of Damascus. This concerns the consent of Bashar al-Assad's regime to the provisions of the Geneva Communiqué of 30 June 2012 and its consent to participate in Geneva-2, which has been confirmed only recently, and to send its delegation there without any preconditions, while the opposition has not done this yet.

Public assessments of the U.S. Department of State that "everything will be OK, if Russia influences Damascus", against a backdrop of many facts concerning the breakdown of the opposition into smaller groups, the getting out of control of military units of the coalition, who proclaim not the fight for a democratic Syria, but for the creation of a caliphate in Syria and around it, might likely be slightly more self-critical.