Sergei Lavrov interviewed by BBC Hardtalk

Instead of waiting for the edited hightlights from the BBC we can listen to the interview verbatim

Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov tells BBC that US Plan B ‘was to spare Al Nusra’ in Syria

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the BBC that the US is trying to spare jihadist groups in its attempts to overthrow Syria's Bashar al-Assad.

the Duran,

30 September, 2016

It has been one year since Russia was invited, legally, by the internationally recognized government of Syria. What is the US doing in Syria, uninvited?

Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke with Stephen Sackur on BBC World News TV on the first anniversary of the beginning of the Russian air campaign in Syria.

You can sense the panic from Sackur, as he realises the Al Qaeda jihadists, the BBC has been backing in its media reporting, are facing defeat in Aleppo.

Lavrov is his usual professional self…beating down all of Sackur’s ridiculous, propaganda filled questions.

Here are some highlights of what Lavrov said during the interview…

• “They [the US] pledged solemnly to take as a priority an obligation to separate the opposition from Nusra.”
• “They still, in spite of many repeated promises and commitments…are not able or not willing to do this andwe have more and more reasons to believe that from the very beginning the plan was to spare Nusra and to keep it just in case for Plan B or stage two when it would be time to change the regime.”
• “We believe that the Russian-American deal must be put into effect. For this the only thing which is necessary is to separate the opposition from Nusra. If it is supported by the United States, not on paper but in real life, and then we will insist on an immediate cessation of hostilities.
• “Humanitarian things are very important and we are doing everything now together with the Syrian government to help the United Nations to get weekly pauses in Aleppo to deliver humanitarian goods. It’s the Nusra-controlled people in eastern Aleppo who refuse to do this.”
• “We had many pauses, many humanitarian pauses during this year… 48 hours, 72 hours at the request of the United Nations. Every time these pauses have been used by Nusra to get from abroad more fighters, more ammunition and more weapons. There must be some first step and we have to get our priorities right.
  
  

Here is the BBC's 12 minutes (compared with 22 minutes from the Russian Ministry of Foreiegn Affairs