
© Sergei Karpukhin / ReutersRussia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
With Kurdish militia and US Special Forces on the ground,
there is a realistic way to shut off the illegal flow of oil from Syria into Turkey, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at talks with his Serbian counterpart, Ivica Dacic.
Sealing the border between Turkey and Syria is
more important at the moment than finding out who is buying the oil produced by Islamic State (IS, ISIS/ISIL), Lavrov said while speaking with Dacic in Belgrade on Wednesday. The talks come on the eve of a two-day conference of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), currently chaired by Serbia.
"Rather than launching a lengthy procedure of investigation, one must take an absolutely obvious step, i.e. close the Turkish-Syrian border," Lavrov said, stressing that "Turkey's efforts will not be enough and it will need help,"RIA Novosti reports.
Comment: Media-savvy Russians score another one.