Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed Friday that he has provided weapons, air cover and supplies to a key Western-backed Syrian opposition group.
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said hours later after Putin’s statements that the president has been talking about weapons supplies to the armed forces which are loyal to Assad.
Davutoglu said Russian bombing around Azaz, also in northwest Syria, was created to cut supply lines to Syrian groups opposed to Assad, Moscow’s ally, and ultimately to benefit Islamic State militants.
“They want to expel them, they want to ethnically cleanse this area so that the regime (of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad) and Russian bases in Latakia and Tartus are protected”, he said, speaking English.
Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria now control 70 per cent of Syrian territory, putting their number at 60,000.
The Kremlin spokesman also confirmed that Russian Federation made contact with the so-called moderate opposition in Syria, which had no links to terrorists and extremists.
During the meeting, Putin also ordered the military to establish cooperation with the forces of the global coalition led by the United States and with Israel to reinforce the security of flights over the Syrian airspace.
The Turkmens are ethnic kin of the Turks and Ankara has been particularly angered by what it says is Russian targeting of them in Syria.
While the USA and allied nations have tempered their calls for Assad to leave office immediately, “they insist on a date, some kind of time frame after which he won’t continue to exercise his functions”, Russia’s Lavrov said in an interview with Italian media published December 9.
“I am ordering you to act tough”. “Any targets threatening the Russian grouping or our land infrastructure should be immediately destroyed”. “If we are not responding to all that they have done until now, it is not because we are afraid or because of any psychology of guilt”, Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told NTV television. “Moderate forces who have been found to have no relations with terrorists can be partners in the dialogue and such dialogue is taken into account in the course of the Russian air force operation in Syria”.
The moves came as Russia’s economy plunged into recession on the back of Western sanctions over Ukraine and plunging oil prices, and prevented most large investors from holding the debt.
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He added that the navy received two new nuclear-powered submarines equipped with intercontinental ballistic missiles, two general-purpose submarines and eight surface warships so far this year.
