Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that any discussions about the future of the Gaza Strip without an immediate cease-fire are “useless.”
Speaking at a UN Security Council session on the situation in Gaza, Lavrov said the United States has blocked all efforts and initiatives to stop the bloodshed in the enclave, noting that Washington is giving Israel “carte blanche” to collectively punish the Palestinians.
Russia’s top diplomat defined the situation on the border between Lebanon and Israel as “explosive.”
He said Russia is “alarmed” over statements by the Israeli leadership that call into question the two-state formula for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
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Lavrov said the current escalation of the conflict in Gaza has “metastasized” throughout the region due to the US and its allies, “whose military presence in the Middle East, as in other parts of the Eurasian continent, creates ever new unacceptable risks for international security.”
He added the whole world is waiting for the West to realize that its “persistent disregard” for multilateral diplomacy leads to “tragic results over and over again.”
According to Lavrov, Palestinians must decide for themselves what their future state should look like, as well as who should govern it and how.
“After the acute phase of the current crisis has been relieved, which should be facilitated by the UN Security Council’s solidarity call for a cease-fire, we propose convening consultations at the ministerial level to consolidate the positions of key regional players and, on this basis, develop practical steps to promote the restoration of Palestinian unity,” he said.
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Lavrov also called on members of the UN Security Council not to fall for US assurances that Washington has “everything under control” and to not postpone the establishment of a Palestinian state “until better times.”
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 25,700 Palestinians have been killed, and 63,730 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Palestinian and international estimates say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
(PC, Anadolu)
