Sergey Ivanov :"Russia is not going to give up its cooperation with the United States in the coalition against terrorism"

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

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'The world still faces the threat of major terrorist acts. That is why Russia is not going to give up its cooperation with the United States in the coalition against terrorism,' Russian Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov declared to journalists at the Center for Defense Information here, the press service of the Russian Defense Ministry reported. Ivanov said: 'Rumors of the imminent end of Russian-American cooperation are greatly exaggerated.' He added: 'The basis of this cooperation is our partnership in the antiterrorist coalition that took shape on September 11, 2001.' The minister also said Iraq had become 'the gravitational center for terrorist groups from throughout the Arab East.' He added: 'This has occurred because of the failure to impose genuinely coalition-based stabilization measures' in Iraq. The Russian defense minister also said nuclear weapons must not be used against terrorists. 'Traditional weapons are fully adequate,' Ivanov said. 'Use of nuclear weapons would sharply lower the threshold for their use. That would be letting the genie out of the bottle.'