The fate of Bashar Assad has been a stumbling block in the Syrian peace talks, with the United States and its allies insisting that he must step down, and Russian Federation saying it is for the people of Syria to decide on his future.
Advertisement
“The Islamic State is not a state, of course and our common duty is to not allow it to become a state, in spite of its attempts to set up a caliphate”, he said, adding that Moscow hopes that the political process to resolve the Syrian conflict will start as scheduled in January 2016.
“And to have ground forces, we need to put an end to the Syrian civil war”, Araud said.
Syria’s President Bashar Assad has said that on the way to presidential elections in the country “there’s nothing called a red line if the Syrians, in their dialogue, want to have presidential elections”, he said in an interview with the Italian RAI UNO television on Wednesday.
“Even if I said that was okay, I still don’t think it would actually work”, Obama said.
Iranian mourners carry the flag draped coffin of Abdollah Bagheri Niaraki, a onetime bodyguard of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who was killed while fighting in Aleppo in Syria, during his funeral service in front of his home in downtown Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Oct. 29, 2015.
With this in mind, French President Francois Hollande will meet President Putin and US President Obama next week.
“In recent years, Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and other extremist groups have organized the operations of the so-called “pipeline on wheels” on the territories they control”, Russian General Staff spokesman Colonel General Andrey Kartapolov said.
The U.S. has been leading a coalition of nations carrying out airstrikes against the militants in Syria and Iraq for more than a year.
Iran, which participated for the second time in the talks on Syria, stated that it will not settle for strain for the ouster of Assad underneath the pretext of fixing the Syrian disaster.
Secretary of State John Kerry said last week that it’s a “non-starter” to expect the Syrian opposition to agree to Assad’s leadership.
Advertisement
“It is not going to be sufficient for us to have formal political processes that lead to Assad still being in power”, he told reporters at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) summit in Manila.
