“There is no doubt that Russia’s effective airstrikes and ground operations by the Syrian army and popular forces forced terrorists and their sponsors to come to the negotiating table, and they realized that military action will be in no one’s interest in Syria”, Rouhani said in a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Advertisement
Putin has embarked upon a round of telephone diplomacy, speaking to Assad, the Saudi king, the Iranian president and the Israeli prime minister.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said that although Moscow and Damascus differed on certain topics “the main goal is to stop the bloodletting in Syria”.
Amid the diplomatic blitz a senior Assad political adviser, Busseina Shaaban, has arrived in Moscow, a spokesman for Vitaly Naumkin, a Russian academic who has taken part in talks on the Syrian crisis, told AFP.
The Syrian government and a leading opposition bloc have agreed to the cessation of hostilities set to begin at midnight.
The limited cease-fire agreement announced Monday, which is supposed to take effect on February 27, includes Russian Federation, the U.S.-backed coalition fighting Islamic State terrorists, Assad’s government and some opposition groups.
Putin and Assad “stressed the importance of continuing an uncompromising fight” against jihadi groups and “other terrorist groups included in the relevant UN Security Council list”, the Kremlin continued.
It won’t be enough to defeat ISIL on the battlefield, Obama said, adding that the US and its allies will have to defeat its ideology.
It is hoped it will allow for further aid to be delivered to desperate Syrians.
Kerry sparred with Republicans on the panel over whether President Barack Obama has the leverage and the will to punish Moscow if it doesn’t live up to the terms of the cease-fire.
Yet a senior USA administration official said it took until mid-September for Western powers to fully recognize Russia’s intentions.
Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis, meanwhile, said gains by US-backed fighters in northeast Syria were paving the way for an assault on Raqa, the IS de facto capital in the country.
He urged President Bashar Assad’s government to halt attacks on civilians and called on “all parties to refrain from steps that could endanger the cease-fire so close to it coming into effect”.
U.S. Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he did not believe Russian Federation was convinced it would suffer any consequences if the plan fails.
Ahmet Davutoglu has accused Russian Federation of striking the moderate opposition in Syria in the past five months under the guise of hitting Syria’s al-Qaida branch, known as the Nusra Front.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., expressed concern the truce will become a “rope-a-dope deal”, a reference to boxing technique in which a fighter exhausts his opponent while expending little energy.
The truce deal puts Turkey in an “impossible situation”, said Badie.
Syria’s main opposition group, the High Negotiations Committee, has said it supports a two-week truce in Syria, to test the other side’s commitment to the plan.
One former USA official, who was in government at the time, told Reuters that some US officials had begun voicing concern that Russian Federation would intervene militarily in Syria two weeks before the bombing began.
Advertisement
SANA says that during the call with Putin on Wednesday, the Syrian president confirmed Damascus’ readiness to support the implementation of the agreement for a “cessation of hostilities” in Syria. This week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that around 400,000 people had died and 12 million people been displaced since the war started.
