Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday that the United States is applying double standards in combating terrorism, calling on the US to fight terrorists consistently everywhere rather than classifying them as 'good' or 'bad' terrorists.

In an interview provided to the Russian Channel 5 prior to his meeting with US State Secretary John Kerry on Wednesday, Lavrov said that combating terrorism requires fighting terrorists everywhere, not making classifications of 'good' or 'bad' terorists depending on what sides happen to dislike personally.

"According to this logic, the only bad terrorists are the ones who only kill US citizens," he said, wondering how the Americans failed to see the terrorist threats before.

He noted that the US didn't listen to Russia when it called for uniting efforts and supporting the Syrian government to fight terrorism.

Additionally, Lavrov said that Russia welcomes any effort to help the Iraqi government combat terrorism, but if any side wants to combat terrorism in another country's territories, particularly in Syria, they must receive permission from the country's government, noting that Syria has repeatedly voiced readiness to cooperate with any international effort to help eliminate terrorism.

Reacting to the speech by US President Barack Obama at the United Nations in New York, Lavrov said, "Number one is the Ebola virus, number two is the so-called Russian "aggression" in Europe and [so-called "Daesh"] ISIL and other terrorists who are now taking hold of the Middle East and primarily of the countries, which have evidenced US interventions, are ranked as number three."

"We earned the second place among the threats to international peace and stability," as he told journalists on the sidelines of the UN assembly. 

Not only the ranking of international threats seemed bizarre to Lavrov, especially in the light of the current strikes in Iraq and Syria that bypassed the UN mandate, but also Obama's certainty that the world has become "freer and safer." 

The US President presented a US worldview stressing the exceptionality of himself and of his country, Lavrov said:
"That's the worldview of a country that has spelt out its right to use force arbitrarily regardless of UN Security Council's resolutions or other international legal acts in its national defense doctrine." 

Regarding the sanctions against Russia, Lavrov lashed out that it was only the problem of the US which imposed them. 

Moscow seeks to settle conflicts through equal dialogue and not through unilateral accusations, not by "shifting the blame," Lavrov said.

Source: Agencies