MOSCOW, June 3 (RIA Novosti) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday that attempts to politicize the humanitarian crisis in Syria are counterproductive.
“We consider counterproductive any attempts to politicize the humanitarian crisis [in Syria], to use it for justification of external military intervention," Lavrov said in a statement delivered at the third session of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society.
The ongoing presidential vote in Syria on Tuesday is the first multiple-candidate presidential election, which comes amid the ongoing civil war. The conflict broke out in March 2011 and has since claimed more than 130,000 lives, according to UN estimates.
Moscow has repeatedly condemned the rise of terrorism in Syria and has urged the international community to take steps toward the peaceful settlement of the conflict.
