Ladies and Gentlemen,

Ali Akbar Salehi, my Iranian colleague, and I discussed a series of questions regarding the development of a meeting between Vladimir Putin, the President of Russian Federation, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, that took place in Beijing on 7 June. During the course of the meeting between Putin and Ahmadinejad, bilateral relations as well as international and regional affairs were discussed. We are pleased with the progress of trade and economic cooperation; turnover exceeds $3 billion and there are good chances for its build-up. We place our hopes on the upcoming tenth intergovernmental session regarding trade and economic cooperation. I am sure that its results will facilitate further development of financial, investment and trade cooperation.

We value our partnership with Iran to fight against terrorism and drug trafficking. We are glad that S. Jalili, Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, participated in the meeting of High Representatives who are responsible for the security issues. This meeting was held in St. Petersburg. I am having a meeting with S. Jalili immediately after this conference.

Russia and Iran are partners on the Caspian Sea. It is in our best interests to achieve full implementation of agreements adopted during Teheran Caspian summit and 2-year-ago Baku summit of the five bordering states.

The intense and trustful dialogue regarding regional problematic is currently held between our countries. Special attention, of course, is being paid to the situation in Syria and around it; including the Russian proposal to hold the international conference on the issue that would involve all key outer players including Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). We are also interested in the cooperation when discussing other issues of the region, including Palestinian. I believe that this topic is not effective anymore and we need to move in the direction of its settlement.

We also touched upon the situation of the preparation for the meeting in Moscow regarding the Nuclear Problem of Iran (NPI) between the "3 plus 3" group and S. Jalili. We will pay special attention to it during the course of our meeting with Jalili today. Considering that, Iranian colleagues are interested in finding arrangements that will continue to move our negotiation forward. We will do our best to ensure the results will contribute to this, prior to our meeting in Moscow.

I would love to thank my colleague for his hospitality. Right now, Saeed Jalili and I are ready to answer all the questions you might have.

Question: Some Western countries have taken unilateral sanctions against Iran. What is the position of Russia in this respect?

S.V Lavrov: Our view on the unilateral sanctions is well known. We are against any involuntary actions in contravention of United Nations Security Force, whatever country it may concern - Iran, Cuba or any other sovereign UN member states. Unilateral sanctions, especially in cases where the international community has a collective position, which is embodied in United Nations Security Force resolutions appear to be "spoilers" and do not contribute to the unity of actions in the best interests to facilitate collectively agreed position. Such position exists in the Nuclear Programme of Iran (NPI). This position is embodied in the decisions of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and was supported by United Nations Security Force. To do something beyond this in terms of enforcement is counterproductive.

To neglect these decisions, of course, is not correct as well. This is why we presume that if we decided to act collectively we need to comply with our decision. As my colleague Salehi has already mentioned, we are counting on the fact that today my forthcoming meeting with Jalili will help to better prepare for the Moscow round of negotiations between group "3 plus 3" and Iran.

Question: Mr. Lavrov, yesterday H. Clinton, the United States Secretary of State, as a matter of fact accused Russia in supplying combat helicopters to Syria and expressed her serious concern regarding this issue. Could you please comment on her statement and resolve such concern?

S.V. Lavrov: I would like to pay your attention to the fact that after Mrs. Clinton's statement, the official representative of Pentagon said that US Defence Department does not possess such information.

A couple of days ago in course of one of my press conferences in Moscow, I have already mentioned, that Russia is finalizing the implementation of contracts that were signed and paid long time ago. All those contracts are concerned with air defence capabilities. We have nothing to justify neither to Hillary Clinton, nor to anyone else. We are violating neither international agreements nor our export regulations, that are known to be one of the most rigid ones in the world. Russia does not supply any equipment that is used to fight against peaceful demonstrations to Syria, unlike USA that supply such equipment to regional countries on the regular basis. Such delivery was made to one of the countries of Persian Gulf recently. For some reason Americans see it as a common practice. We do not deliver such equipment to Syria; we deliver the equipment needed in case of an armed attack on Syria from outside. I believe it complies with the sovereign power of Syria and the Syrian people.

Question: You mentioned earlier that some countries are arming opposition groups in Syria. How severe is the Russian position on the support of B. al-Assad?

S.V. Lavrov: This is not the first time I said that our position is not to support B. al-Assad or anyone personally in any conflict, including the situation in Syria. It is based on the deep concern for the fate of all Syrian people and Syrian government, the desire to prevent the collapse of the Syrian government, which in turn is based on complex ethnic and religious structures, as well as to prevent the region to be affected by events in Syria. The region will suffer inevitably if the scenario so-called "Libyan model" will be implemented.

This "model" has brought and continues bringing pain to the Libyan people and those who are found side by side with that country. The reverberations of this crisis will still be felt far beyond the borders of the country, and Libya itself has to strengthen the central government. Unless that happens, the citizens of other countries who happened to be in Libya, including Russian citizens will continue to suffer. It doesn't matter if it would be Russian specialists who were unfairly judged or a Russian citizen, a member of the International Criminal Court, who together with other government officials of the ICC, was arrested, despite the fact that the UN Security Force (1970) requires the Libyan government to cooperate with the International Criminal Court, to comply with all its privileges and immunities. The resolution is clearly violated. We think that the UN Security Force should react to that.

Once again - we do not support anyone particularly, not the regime, but the foundations of the Syrian government which are fundamental conditions of the stability in the region.

S.V. Lavrov (addition to A.A. Salehi answer regarding Syria): I would like to add something about our initiative of holding an international conference on Syrian issues that we would be happy to conduct in Moscow. Nonetheless, we are willing to consider other geographical regions if it seems more convenient for invited participants. Our position, in fact, is similar to Iran's and United Nations Security Force position: to insist on the necessity of accomplishment of all conditions of K. Annan's peace plan by all Syrian parties without exceptions, as well as by all other states. Annan's plan is not being implemented at the time, and the situation that is happening right now is being undermined by attempts to provoke violence again. At the time military centres are being captured. Recently militants captured the division of air defence in the suburbs of the city of Homs, and hours later regular armed forces defeated them. Schools, hospitals, administrative buildings, and police and military units are being attacked occasionally. Therefore, the violence should be stopped. If one part of the international community will understand the K. Annan's plan as the demand for Russia to get Syrian government to stop violent actions, I declare that this attempt is a provocation. The other party should stop as well.

The suggestion of Russia to assemble the international conference assumes the invitation of all the external key players. If the idea is implemented, the Syrians will join later. On the first stage, the mandatory condition is the meeting of all key players, who have great influence on the Syrian parties. Some of them have greater influence on the Syrian government, some - on the opposition, some on other parties. The main purpose (we assume that 15 participants will be involved) - is to hear that all the participants support K. Annan's plan and ready to help in its implementation. In order to achieve that, each external player should influence different Syrian sides and make Syrian people stop violence, as required by the plan of the United Nations and Arab League Special Envoy to Syria and United Nation Security Force resolution. Our goal is to put all the players to the conference table to support K.Annan's peace plan. K.Annan's plan provides for the necessity to begin the political dialogue between the Syrian government and all opposition groups. We want to make sure that all the external key players sincerely support K. Annan's plan because some of them already doubt the success of the plan. Unfortunately, the plan does not work, but those who talk about it push the uncompromising opposition to continue the violent provocations.

We want to assemble an international conference in order to support our words with actions. I would like to emphasize the importance of unity of all external key players in order to support K. Annan's plan with actions. It is crucial to do that in order to make government and opposition Syrian groups implement this plan.

Once again, I did not find any difference in the approaches of Russia and Iran. In words, international community supports this position - now we need to make it so in reality.