Kerry—Lavrov Statement on Paris Terror

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov both made statements on the Paris terror attacks before attending an international meeting on Syria.

Vienna, Austria

November 14, 2015

 SECRETARY KERRY: We talked, first of all, about the events in Paris, which follow on events in Beirut and events in Iraq. And we are in absolute and total agreement that these kinds of attacks are the most vile, horrendous, outrageous, unacceptable acts on the planet; that under any category – we don’t know who did it, but they are acts of terror. So we are witnessing a kind of medieval and modern fascism at the same time, which has no regard for life, which seeks to destroy and create chaos and disorder and fear.

And the one thing we can say to those people is that what they do in this is stiffen our resolve – all of us – to fight back, to hold people accountable, and to stand up for rule of law, which is exactly what we are here to do. And if they’ve done anything, they have encouraged us today to do even harder work to make progress and to help resolve the crises that we face.

So our hearts go out to the people of Paris, to the French, to people of other countries who lost their lives last night in this atrocious attack, and we intend to do everything in our power not just to stand with the French, but to stand with all people of decency who know this is wrong, this is evil, and we need to stand up against it.

FOREIGN MINISTER LAVROV: I fully subscribe to what John just said. The president of the Russian Federation expressed his solidarity with the French people, our outrage at what happened in Paris, and let’s not forget that there were terrorist attacks taking innocent lives in Beirut and in Iraq in the last few days. I think we have to strongly reiterate that there will be no tolerance vis-a-vis terrorists.

And just like there is no justification for terrorist acts, which is the position of the Security Council, I believe, as John said, there will be no justification for us not doing much more to defeat ISIL, al-Nusrah, and the like. And I hope that this meeting as well would allow us to move forward.

MR KIRBY: Thank you.

SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you all very much. Thank you, sir.

Text: Dep. of State (Website)

Photo: Dep.of State (Via flickr)