However, he said that Putin can not “distinguish between” the Daesh Takfiri terrorists and what he called “a moderate Sunni opposition that wants to see Mr. Assad go”.
Advertisement
During a press conference President Barack Obama said the United States will continue to support the Syrian opposition. “This is a conflict between the Syrian people and a brutal, ruthless dictator”, President Obama said.
Britain itself has launched airstrikes on IS in neighboring Iraq as part of a US-led coalition, but parliament has not yet approved similar action in Syria. “This is not a few superpower chessboard contest”.
Russian officials said the increasing military supplies aim at combating terrorism in accordance with worldwide law.
He specifically condemned the Russians for their three-day bombing campaign in Syria that the USA said has targeted moderate rebel groups, not ISIS.
A command post in the area of ISIS stronghold Raqa as well as an underground bunker storing explosives had been destroyed, it added.
– Russian warplanes carry out 20 flights in Syria, striking “eight Islamic State targets” including a command post, the Russian defence ministry says.
At least 39 civilians, including eight children and eight women, have been killed in Russian air strikes in Syria in the past four days, according to a tally by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Activists on the ground told Al Jazeera that the majority of the attacks hit civilian targets, a claim that Moscow denies.
Lavrov said the legal basis for air strikes in the past year by the US-led coalition of Western allies and regional states against Islamic State targets in Syria was “really flawed”.
The West has raised concerns that Russian forces were also striking at rebel groups opposed to Assad, in a bid to bolster its ally.
Hollande laid out France’s conditions for supporting Russian intervention, which include a halt to strikes on groups other than ISIL and al Qaeda, protections for civilians and a commitment to a political transition that would remove Assad.
Advertisement
“We made it crystal clear that, at a minimum, the priority here should be the safe operation of the air crews over Syria”, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said. Al-Moallem stressed that the working groups proposed by the U.N.’s special envoy on Syria, Staffan de Mistura, are non-binding.
