Lavrov: Russia will continue to ship humanitarian aid of wheat to Syria, and concrete steps to rebuild the Syrian economy are currently under consideration
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that his country has supplied 100,000 tons of wheat to Syria as humanitarian aid since the beginning of 2020 and plans to provide more, the Russian Interfax news agency reported on Thursday.
Syria’s economy is under pressure from the complex, multi-sided conflict that has reached its tenth year, as well as a financial crisis in neighboring Lebanon.
Russia, one of the world’s largest wheat exporters, supports Syrian President Bashar al Assad, but its official customs data do not show any significant supplies of wheat to Syria.
“Regarding the goals of rebuilding the Syrian economy, we have already taken very important decisions in the last few weeks that will significantly improve Syria’s ability to organize this work in a systematic way,” Interfax news agency quoted Lavrov as saying.
He added that concrete steps in this regard are currently under discussion, but he did not disclose details.
The Syrian Economy Minister said in October that his country needs to import between 180,000 and 200,000 tons of wheat a month, and accused “militias” that prevent farmers from selling wheat to the state of being responsible for the shortage.
