Russia and France can intensify joint efforts to tackle the threat of terrorism and exchange great experience that each side has in this sphere, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the former French prime minister, told Sputnik
SOCHI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th October, 2018) Russia and France can intensify joint efforts to tackle the threat of terrorism and exchange great experience that each side has in this sphere, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the former French prime minister, told Sputnik.
In an interview with RT France, Paris Match and Le Figaro released on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia and France had already established a good bilateral communication channel on Syria, adding that Moscow was ready for any forms of cooperation with Paris on counterterrorism and other issues.
"I think that each time we improve the relationship between France and Russia, we are going in a good direction. So I think that we are very close about terrorism and we can work together ... Both countries have a vision of this fight and I think we can have a good improvement if we work together in the same direction," Raffarin said on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club forum.
Raffarin added that the summit on Syria in Istanbul, which is being planned with the participation of the leaders of Russia, France, Germany and Turkey, might also promote joint counterterrorism efforts.
The former French prime minister added that another serious issue that Russian and France should be cooperating on was the Ukrainian crisis.
"I think another topic that we have to work on is the security in Eastern Europe ... I hope that Mr Macron and Mr Putin will discuss this question [in the future] ... We cannot have a dangerous situation in this part of our common space," Raffarin said.
Speaking at the Valdai Club plenary session on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that terrorism could be fought only by the efforts of the international community as a whole and regretted that such an approach was yet to be adopted in the international relations.
On May 29, 2017, Macron and Putin held their first official meeting at the Versailles Palace, focusing on bilateral relations and key international issues, particularly the crises in Ukraine and Syria as well as anti-terror fight. During the meeting, Macron suggested setting up a Russian-French working group on countering terrorism. In late August 2017, Macron set eradicating "Islamist terrorism" as his core foreign policy goal.
