MOSCOW. May 28 (Interfax) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the main thing for Russia is not who is in power in Syria, but the most important thing is to stop the violence in the country.
"To us it's totally not the main thing who is in power in Syria, what regime is in place in Syria. The main thing for us is to ensure a halt of any violence and a halt of people's death, primarily, the entire civilian population, and to ensure political dialogue in which the people of Syria can decide on the fate of their country on the basis of respect by all external parties of the sovereignty and territorial integrity and independence of Syria and the right of its people to determine their fate," Lavrov told a press conference in Moscow on Monday.
"We need to put pressure on both the regime and the opposition to make them stop killing each other and stop military action, in which civilians are killed, and begin negotiations," he said.
"Everything else is secondary," the Russian minister said.
The goal to stop violence "should be the main one for the other foreign players as well," he said.
"If it is so, if the halt of violence and saving lives are priorities, everything else should be secondary. When some of our partners, especially from countries located closer to Syria than Russia and the UK, begin saying that only changing the regime will resolve the problem, I begin to doubt the sincerity of their statements that they want to end the violence," Lavrov said.
Lavrov recalled that one of the provisions of the plan proposed by UN and Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan "is devoted to political dialogue which should begin between the Syrian government and all opposition groups."
"It's not an irresolvable task. The main thing here is that all external players should have a united position," Lavrov said.