Russia considers Palestine’s demands for Israel to end occupation “justified” - FM

MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/. Russia considers Palestine’s demands for Israel to end the occupation “justified”, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday. “...First of all, the position of Palestine, the demand of Palestine is justified: they have been promised the state long-long-long ago. And the proposal, the substance of the draft resolution, which the Arab countries are promoting in the Security Council, is absolutely legitimate, and we cannot but support it, because we have always been supportive of what is written there,” Lavrov told France 24 TV Channel. “They just request the previous agreements, the Security Council resolution - resolutions, the Madrid principles, and other arrangements reached by the parties in the past, to be implemented, period. And we would be, as I said, considering these as an absolutely legitimate step,” he said. “Whether this would help in reaching a deal - this is a more complicated question, because the Palestinians are considering asking to be admitted to the instruments of international organizations, international conventions; and Israelis say that if Palestinians go to these international organizations, especially to the international Criminal Court, then there would be an end to any dialogue,” Lavrov said. “But this is a Palestinian matter, and they have to take their own decision with the advice, I believe, of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. But this would be their decision, they have to calculate the consequences, the positive and the negative alike. We would strongly prefer to do everything to reach consensus in the Security Council. Then it would be a different game. And I discuss this thing with John Kerry, with my Arab counterparts, and we will continue these discussions just in the next few days,” Lavrov said. Read more