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Russia Calls for International Monitoring Mission in Gaza

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov waits before a meeting of Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Kyrgyzstan's President Sadyr Japarov in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan October 12, 2023. (Sputnik/Pavel Bednyakov/Kremlin via Reuters)
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov waits before a meeting of Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Kyrgyzstan's President Sadyr Japarov in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan October 12, 2023. (Sputnik/Pavel Bednyakov/Kremlin via Reuters)
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Russia Calls for International Monitoring Mission in Gaza

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov waits before a meeting of Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Kyrgyzstan's President Sadyr Japarov in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan October 12, 2023. (Sputnik/Pavel Bednyakov/Kremlin via Reuters)
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov waits before a meeting of Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Kyrgyzstan's President Sadyr Japarov in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan October 12, 2023. (Sputnik/Pavel Bednyakov/Kremlin via Reuters)

Russia on Sunday called for an international monitoring mission to go to Gaza to assess the humanitarian situation, and said it was unacceptable for Israel to use Hamas' Oct. 7 attack as justification for punishing the Palestinian people.

Israel invaded Gaza in retaliation for Hamas attack that Israel says killed 1,200 people. Israel's assault on Gaza has killed at least 17,000 people, Gaza health authorities say.

The United States on Friday vetoed a proposed UN Security Council demand for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.

"We strongly condemned the terrorist attack against Israel on Oct. 7," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Al Jazeera in an interview aired on Sunday at the Doha Forum conference.

"At the same time, we do not believe it is acceptable to use this event for the collective punishment of the millions of Palestinian people with indiscriminate shelling."

Lavrov said that for there to be "humanitarian pauses" in Gaza "some kind of monitoring on the ground" was needed.

"We addressed the Secretary General [Antonio Guterres] suggesting that he use his authority to consider some kind of monitoring - but so far to no avail," Lavrov said.

President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly accused the United States and the West of ignoring the need for an independent Palestinian state within 1967 borders. Putin on Sunday spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about Gaza.

"This happened not in a vacuum," Lavrov said, pointing to decades of blockade and unfulfilled promises about a Palestinian state.

The UN's Guterres has previously said that the Hamas attack did not happen in a vacuum. Israel said Guterres had justified the Hamas attacks with such words. Guterres rejected the Israeli accusations.

Ukraine

Asked in the Al Jazeera interview if Russia was being hypocritical with its criticism about that fate of the Palestinians while Russia fights a war in Ukraine, Lavrov said neither he nor Russia were hypocritical.

Lavrov said that the West was trying to exhaust Russia in Ukraine by supplying weapons and that if peace talks were to take place then Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy would have to annul his own presidential decree.

"It is up to the Ukrainians to recognize how deep they are in the hole where the Americans put them," Lavrov said when asked if the war was at a stalemate.

When asked by Al Jazeera what the chances were of diplomacy to bring about a ceasefire or peace in Ukraine, he said: "You'll have to call Mr. Zelenskiy because a year and half ago he signed a decree prohibiting any negotiations with Putin."

Lavrov said that a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia was almost reached in Istanbul in March and April 2022 based on the idea of Ukrainian neutrality.

"This deal was aborted - it was cancelled because the Americans and the Brits decided that if Putin is ready to sign it then let's exhaust him more. That's what they are doing now. Stalemate or no stalemate - that is the fact," Lavrov said.

Asked in the interview about the August plane crash which killed Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, Lavrov said investigators had probed the crash.

"As regards the soldiers from Wagner group... quite a number of them went to Belarus and started to serve there," Lavrov said "Others joined the regular structures of the Russian army - and they continue to serve." 

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Blinken Meets China’s Wang after Chiding Beijing’s ‘Escalating Actions’ at Sea

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at the 57th ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting at the National Convention Center, in Vientiane, Laos, July 27, 2024. (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at the 57th ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting at the National Convention Center, in Vientiane, Laos, July 27, 2024. (Reuters)
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Blinken Meets China’s Wang after Chiding Beijing’s ‘Escalating Actions’ at Sea

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at the 57th ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting at the National Convention Center, in Vientiane, Laos, July 27, 2024. (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at the 57th ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting at the National Convention Center, in Vientiane, Laos, July 27, 2024. (Reuters)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Saturday during a regional summit in Laos, hours after criticizing Beijing's "escalating and unlawful actions" in the South China Sea.

Blinken and Wang shook hands and exchanged greetings in front of cameras but made no comments before moving to closed-door talks in what will be their sixth meeting since June 23, when Blinken visited Beijing in a significant sign of improvement for strained relations between the world's two biggest economies.

Though Blinken had singled out China over its actions against US defense ally the Philippines in the South China Sea during a meeting with Southeast Asian counterparts earlier on Saturday, he also lauded the two countries for their diplomacy after Manila completed a resupply mission to troops in an area also claimed by Beijing.

The troop presence has for years angered China, which has clashed repeatedly with the Philippines over Manila's missions to a grounded navy ship at the Second Thomas Shoal, causing regional concern about an escalation.

The two sides this week reached an arrangement over how to conduct those missions.

"We are pleased to take note of the successful resupply today of the Second Thomas shoal, which is the product of an agreement reached between the Philippines and China," Blinken told ASEAN foreign ministers.

"We applaud that and hope and expect to see that it continues going forward."

GAZA SITUATION 'DIRE'

Blinken and Wang attended Saturday's security-focused ASEAN Regional Forum in Laos alongside top diplomats of major powers including Russia, India, Australia, Japan, the European, Britain and others, before heading to their meeting.

Blinken said earlier the United States was "working intensely every single day" to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and find a path to more enduring peace and security.

His remarks follow those of Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, who said the need for sustainable peace was urgent and international law should be applied to all. The comment from the world's largest Muslim-majority nation, was a veiled reference to recent decisions by two international courts over Israeli's Gaza offensives.

"We cannot continue closing our eyes to see the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza," she said.

More than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting in Gaza since Israel launched its incursion, according to Palestinian health authorities, who do not distinguish between fighters and non-combatants.

Israeli officials estimate that some 14,000 fighters from armed groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have been killed or taken prisoner, out of a force they estimated to number more than 25,000 at the start of the war.

The war began when Hamas fighters attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and abducting some 250 others, according to Israeli tallies.

Also in Laos, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said guidelines on the operation of US nuclear assets on the Korean peninsula were certain to add to regional security concerns.

Lavrov, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap, said he had not been briefed on the details of the plan, which was of concern to Russia.

"So far we can't even get an explanation of what this means, but there is no doubt that it causes additional anxiety," Russia's state-run RIA new agency quoted him as saying.

'THIS IS NOT SUSTAINABLE'

Ahead of Saturday's two summits, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong urged Myanmar's military rulers to take a different path and end an intensifying civil war, pressing the generals to abide by their commitment to follow ASEAN's five-point consensus peace plan.

The conflict pits Myanmar's well-equipped military against a loose alliance of ethnic minority rebel groups and an armed resistance movement that has been gaining ground and testing the generals' ability to govern.

The junta has largely ignored the ASEAN-promoted peace effort, and the 10-member bloc has hit a wall as all sides refuse to enter into dialogue.

"We see the instability, the insecurity, the deaths, the pain that is being caused by the conflict," Wong told reporters.

"My message from Australia to the regime is, this is not sustainable for you or for your people."

An estimated 2.6 million people have been displaced by fighting. The junta has been condemned for excessive force in its air strikes on civilian areas and accused of atrocities, which it has dismissed as Western disinformation.

ASEAN issued a communique on Saturday, two days after its top diplomats met, stressing it was united behind its peace plan for Myanmar, saying it was confident in its special envoy's resolve to achieve "an inclusive and durable peaceful resolution" to the conflict.

It condemned violence against civilians and urged all sides in Myanmar to cease hostilities.

ASEAN welcomed unspecified practical measures to reduce tension in the South China Sea and prevent accidents and miscalculations, while urging all stakeholders to halt actions that could complicate and escalate disputes.

The ministers described North Korea's missile tests as worrisome developments and urged peaceful resolutions to the conflicts in Ukraine, as well as Gaza, expressing concern over the dire humanitarian situation and "alarming casualties" there.