Sergei Lavrov Quotes

There is no doubt Assad deserves every missile we fire at him, but there's one big problem with air strikes - there is absolutely no proof it has any deterrent effect on Assad. To the contrary, history tells us these strikes will most likely quicken the pace of his assault on his own people.

Surely our inaction with respect to Syria is a poor precedent if we're fighting a war on terror.

Finally, I am encouraged to note that the Security Council issued a statement today expressing its concern about the massive humanitarian crisis in Darfur and calling on all parties to the conflict to protect civilians and reach a ceasefire.

In Rwanda that genocide happened because the international community and the Security Council refused to give, again, another 5000 troops which would have cost, I don't know, maybe fifty, a hundred, million dollars.

If we speak calmly, in a businesslike fashion, let me draw your attention to the fact that Russia supplies arms to the legitimate government of Syria in full compliance with the norms of international law. We are not breaching any rules and norms.

I have nothing but contempt for Gadhafi. I'm not a Gadhafi supporter in any way. However, it's not clear to me that it's a vital and compelling national security objective of the United States that we ought to use military force to remove him from power. He's not the only unpleasant and unsavory dictator in the world.

The security agencies are prosecuting the government’s war in Darfur.

Give the Serbs 48 hours, and if they don't release the hostages, bomb them to hell.

Syria cannot continue this way—killing their people

… the financial cost of a [military] strike isn’t a reason to acquiesce in mass murder in Syria.

…allies such as Bahrain are liable to use their American made weapons against their own people.

In August 2012, the international community should have been far more determined in dealing with the Bashar Assad regime.

Trump has long said he favors a 'safe zone' in Syria to prevent Basher al Assad's regime from carrying out indiscriminate airstrikes against Syrian civilians and to halt the refugee flow out of Syria.

It was wrenching to read about the brutality of Assad every morning, to see images of family homes reduced to rubble. I felt we had to do something in Syria.

The Sudanese army has retaken some towns. The people there are all living in caves because the Sudanese army is shelling their villages.

There are lots of countries that are having these kinds of internal civil wars in other parts of the world and nobody is talking about intervening.

Let's be clear: Neither Secretary Powell or I opposed the notion of removing Saddam Hussein by force, but we wanted to avoid the war if we could. But if we couldn't, the notion of removing Saddam Hussein from the scene seemed eminently sensible, given that you had, what, 16 or so U.N. Security Council resolutions basically saying the same thing.

When human rights are systematically abused, it raises the question whether it may be legitimate in some circumstances for the international community to intervene within individual states as well as in conflicts between states.

It is better for the Arab countries themselves to interfere out of their national, humanitarian, political and military duties and to do what is necessary to stop the bloodshed in Syria.

We are not at war with Egypt. We are in an armed conflict.

I'm proud of 'Black Hawk Down' because I think it told a provocative story and it was honest. It could have had more opportunity to tell both sides of the story, but I'm still proud of it.

We've got a very difficult situation created by this embrace of the so-called Arab Spring. And that's not getting better. It's getting worse. The carnage for the people of Syria is horrific, and it's quite frankly too little, too late to reverse a lot of that.

What is most needed in Darfur is an international peacekeeping and protection presence, and this is what the Sudanese government most wants to avoid.

First, we could have defied both of them and could have gone to war against both of these nations for this violation of international law and interference with our neutral rights.

You have no right to criticise Russia over Chechnya.