Russia has stepped up mediation efforts in the Syrian crisis, hosting a Syrian opposition leader in Moscow and announcing plans to send a parliamentary team to Syria.
Ammar Qurabi, chairman of the executive bureau of the Syrian Conference for Change, held talks in Moscow on Friday with Mikhail Margelov, President Dmitry Medvedev's envoy to Africa and the Middle East (West Asia).
After the talks, Mr. Qurabi expressed his displeasure with Moscow's stance, describing it as “ambiguous and controversial” and warning Russia not to “repeat the mistakes it made in Libya and Iraq”.
As the Syrian opposition delegation arrived in Moscow, President Dmitry Medvedev said protesters in Syria included “extremists” and “terrorists”.
“Those who raise anti-government slogans [in Syria] are not all champions of refined European democracy, they are a very motley crowd. Some of them, frankly speaking, are extremists, some may even be called terrorists,” he told Euronews, a European Union TV channel.
Mr. Medvedev said Russia was prepared to back “different approaches” to the Syrian crisis except those “based on one-sided condemnations of President Assad's government.”
Russia has blocked Western efforts to clamp down United Nations sanctions on Syria. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet Bouthaina Shaaban, media adviser to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Mr. Margelov, who is Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the Federation Council upper house of the Russian Parliament, said he would seek Mr. Shaaban's consent to a fact-finding mission by his fellow MPs to Syria.
Mr. Margelov said Russia had not changed its principled stance in favour of political settlement of all crises.
“We are convinced that the Syrian people have the right to solve all problems facing the country without any foreign interference,” he said.
