Russia, West Could Solve 'Middle Eastern Problems' If Efforts Combined

According to a British Conservative Party lawmaker, if Russia and Europe found a way to truly collaborate on the issue, it could build a lot of bridges and help settle multiple crises.

LONDON, January 25 (Sputnik) — Russian cooperation with Western countries will not only enhance the efficiency of the fight against the Islamic State (IS, or ISIS, or Daesh in Arabic) jihadist group, but also contribute to solving other problems in the Middle East, Daniel Kawczynski, a member of the UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said.

"We collaborated to destroy fascism. ISIS is today's fascism. Because they believe in killings, torture, they put people in cages, lower them into the sea, they drown them, burn them…. This is a clear opportunity for Russia and Europe to collaborate together to take on cooperation, military and logistical, to collaborate together to destroy and eliminate Daesh," the UK parliamentarian told RIA Novosti.

"People in the West think — oh well, we can sort it out ourselves, we do not need the Russians. In reality, we desperately do need the Russians, and the Russians need to be part of the solution, whether it is Syria, whether it is the conflict in Iraq, whether it is the conflict in Libya," he stressed.

A US-led international coalition has been conducting airstrikes against IS, which is prohibited in Russia and many other countries, in Iraq and Syria since 2014 without the approval of the UN Security Council or the Syrian government. Russia launched its own air campaign against the extremist group in Syria on September 30, at the request of Damascus.