Moscow hails West’s statements dialogue with Damascus possible - Lavrov

MOSCOW, April 8. /TASS/. Moscow welcomes statements by the West a dialogue with Damascus may be possible. "Better late than never," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday. "Of course, this means a change of the tone (statements by the United States and Germany about the possibility of a dialogue with Syria’s President Bashar Assad - TASS), because we now hear things that were not pronounced before," he said. "Better late than never. Bloodshed in Syria has continued for more than four years. People are suffering." "It is very regrettable that our Western partners at the initial phase of the crisis chose the false path of settling scores with a specific leader and declared him as a dictator," Lavrov said. "As they followed that path they started recruiting allies indiscriminately. In fact, they were cooperating with extremists and terrorists." "They refused to have discussions at the UN over those terrorists who were trying to undermine the basics of the Assad regime," Lavrov recalled. "They were doing so despite our repeated proposals and the UN Security Council’s long-approved principle there can be no justification for terrorism. We were being told that terrorists are bad, but that they were acting in that way because they were angry with a dictatorial regime." "As a matter of fact Washington offered excuses for terrorist actions, which is impermissible and outrageous," Lavrov said. At the same time, about the latest Western statements concerning a dialogue with Damascus Lavrov said that "common sense is making its way." Read more