The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Washington was to offer to cooperate with Russian Federation in joint military action against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) and the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, al-Nusra Front.
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The Washington Post on Thursday published what it said was a copy of the eight-page document.
The State Department declined to comment on the document.
The Russia-U.S. partnership, analysts say, would undercut months of U.S. criticism of Russia’s military intervention in Syria and put the U.S. alongside Assad’s chief global backer, despite years of American demands for Assad to leave power. “It’s clear that these terrorist groups pose a threat to both of our nations that must be dealt with”.
“At present, the United States is not conducting or coordinating military operations with Russian Federation”, he said.
Any deal between Russian Federation and the United States to fight both groups would in effect strengthen Assad’s position, and could undermine U.S. efforts to press him to agree a negotiated political settlement to the civil war.
A partial cease-fire was announced in February, but fighting has been heating up again, particularly around the northern city of Aleppo.
“We need a solution to this that addresses both of these problems”, a senior USA official said, citing Assad’s ceasefire violations and Al-Nusra’s growing role.
“As the Obama Administration explores increased cooperation with Assad’s patrons, particularly Iran and Russian Federation, this bill shows that the representatives of the American people still believe that the United States should stand up to war criminals”, Evan Barrett, Deputy Director of the Syria Emergency Task Force, which has been assisting with the legislation, told The Tower. But they have mostly tried to keep their distance and the coordination has been far from ideal.
Russian forces are fighting in support of Assad’s regime against a variety of rebel factions while a US-led coalition focuses its fire on the Islamic State group.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Shell had been on a “stop list” for a long time, adding that he was “one of the organizers of lying anti-Russian propaganda, financed from the American budget, that is implementing the political decisions taken at the very top of the U.S”.
On Thursday Kerry told journalists in Paris: “I’m going to Moscow, meeting with President Putin tonight”.
Efforts to bring an end to the war have taken on greater urgency since the emergence of ISIL, which seized control of large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in mid-2014. Russian Federation has explicitly differed in its definition of terrorist, and have bombed USA backed assets on several occasions.
Meanwhile, President Obama has declared that Assad has lost all legitimacy and must go. But the president has always been reluctant to become deeply involved in Syria. He has deployed limited US air power, along with a small number of covert forces on the ground. On the diplomatic front, repeated attempts to work out a political solution removing Assad have come up empty. Caesar escaped from Syria in 2013 and brought with him 55,000 images that the State Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation have verified as evidence of mass torture and mass murder by the Syrian army and intelligence forces.
Kerry’s trip, his second to Moscow this year, comes amid a worsening of U.S.
The differences between the US and Syrian Allies definition have never been more stark.
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