Russia calls for return of Syria to League of Arab States: FM

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Moscow hopes that Syria soon returns to the League of Arab States (LAS), for it will consolidate the positions of the Arab countries in the region, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday. 

Lavrov had met with the LAS Contact Group on Ukraine in the Russian capital, Moscow, and the meeting was attended by the foreign ministers of Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Sudan, in addition to the organization's secretary-general Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

"We have expressed hope that the issue of Syria's return to the League of Arab States will be resolved in the near future, which, certainly, will consolidate the positions of our Arab friends throughout this region," Lavrov told reporters following his talks with the top Arab diplomats.

Though Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad had said in January that the restoration of his country's membership in the LAS was not among Damascus' priorities, he did stress that the Assad administration was working on establishing and strengthening relations with fellow Arab states.

Mekdad had voiced his country's support for Russia, explaining that "the wild West is no longer able to restrain itself."

Russia "stood by Syria when the west supported terrorism in Syria," he said, underscoring that "if it were not for Syria’s steadfastness, the West would have taken control of the whole world."

"Russia is a great country, and it will achieve its goals in Ukraine," Mekdad added. 

Russia's First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, had also voiced support for Damascus, calling on all foreign forces illegally present in Syria to withdraw immediately and considered that the US had failed to confront terrorism in the country.