Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered German Chancellor Angela Merkel to tackle the Syria refugee crisis and voiced plans to discuss humanitarian aid to the five million people that fled the Syrian conflict to the neighboring countries.
Lebanon supports Russia’s initiative on Syrian refugees and hopes that it will be implemented, Lebanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Gebran Bassil said as he met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday.
Sergei Lavrov noted in response that Russia aspires to help return Syrian refugees to their homes as soon as possible. According to him, Russia “keeps in touch with the Syrian government” and with those countries that have hosted the refugees.
The US is trying to artificially slow down return of refugees to Syria by refusing to participate in restoration of Syrian infrastructure, Lavrov said.
This comes after Russian President Putin’s detailed bilateral talks with Angela Merkel in Berlin on Saturday, where called to build up humanitarian aid to the Syrian people and to the countries where refugees are living at the moment.
Hours before the meeting, Vladimir Putin called on European countries to rebuild the crisis-torn Syria to ensure that Syrian refugees are able to return to their homeland, warning that a renewed migration crisis would be a “disruptive burden” for Europe. He added that there were around 5 million refugees in the countries neighboring Syria, including around 1 million in Lebanon. Most of them fled from terrorists and militants who had earlier controlled the western part of Syria that borders Lebanon.
Now that most part of Syrian territory has been liberated from terrorists, Moscow claims, Syrian citizens can safely return to their homes. Tens of thousands of refugees have already headed for Syria from Lebanon, and the Moscow talks are expected to give a boost to the repatriation process.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
