Special Envoy For the Un and League of Arab States For Syria Kofi Annan: Thank you very much, Mr Foreign Minister. We’ve had a very good discussion with the President, discussing the situation and the crisis in Syria, focusing on what measures need to be taken to end the violence and the killing, and how we move on to the political transition.
Obviously, the discussions in the Security Council regarding the resolution also came up, and I would hope that the Council will continue its discussions, and hopefully find a language that will pool everybody together for us to move forward on this critical issue.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov: I can only confirm that Russia is ready to engage in this work. We came to a complicated compromise in Geneva, at the conference held by Mr Annan on June 30. The Geneva document is a consensus document. I do not see any reasons why we would not be able to agree on the same basis within the Security Council as well.
So, we are ready for that.
Kofi Annan: As I said earlier, we need to do whatever we can to stop the violence, to stop the killing. And the Council I spoke to will be sending a message out that the killing must stop and the situation on the ground is unacceptable. Then, hopefully, the Council will come together in a united manner and press ahead in search of peace.