US Secretary of State John Kerry will visit Russian Federation next week to discuss the Syria crisis, Washington said, after Moscow began withdrawing most of its forces from the country.
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US administration officials on Tuesday remained cautious about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement of a partial withdrawal from Syria.
Delegates at the talks held a moment of silence on Tuesday to mark the fifth anniversary of the beginning of Syria’s civil war, which has seen more than four million people flee the country.
The main Syrian Kurdish group – the Democratic Union Party (PYD), and its military wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG) – have been excluded from the Geneva talks so as not to anger Turkey, despite Russia’s insistence they participate.
The pullout from the Hemeimeen base coincides with the resumption of U.N.-brokered peace talks in Geneva between the Syrian government and the representatives of the moderate, Western-Backed opposition.
Putin has said Russian Federation will keep some troops at Hemeimeem and a naval facility in the Syrian port of Tartous. “We haven’t seen a significant reduction of their combat power, and particularly their ground combat power remains static”, Warren said.
But Assad’s forces were continuing their offensive against Islamic State militants in Palmyra, and “our general assessment…is that the regime could continue to push if they received Russian air support”, he said.
Group member Fateh Jamous charged the more hardline HNC with imposing “conditions that we consider contradictory to the principle of consensus, including the condition of (Assad’s) departure”.
Su-34 bombers are among jets that have left the Hemeimeem air base in Syria and troops are “loading equipment, logistics items and inventory into transport” planes, the Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday on Twitter.
Russian parliamentary defence and security committee chairman Viktor Ozerov said a minimum of 800 tropps would be needed to protect the bases.
President Vladimir Putin surprised many on Monday when he ordered the withdrawal of Russian military personnel from Syria, saying he hoped it would stimulate the peace negotiations.
But chief government negotiator Bashar al-Jaafari rejected the idea, calling his opposition counterpart a terrorist.
Experts say it is unlikely the ceasefire or the talks would have been possible without recent changes on the ground brought about by Russian action.
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And even as it prepared to announce its withdrawal, Russian Federation handed its ally in Damascus a range of new weapons, including helicopters, warplanes and “new tanks capable of resisting TOW missiles”, Balanche said. “The Russian air group has a task of continuing to strike terrorist targets”.
