Al-Manar, the Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese television channel, said Hezbollah forces were moving to reinforce the Syrian army’s positions around the airbase’s southern flank. Assad is not mentioned again in the document.
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The document was circulated ahead of a second round of talks in Vienna on Saturday among key governments on both sides of the Syrian conflict.
“The impetus in Vienna should not be missed”, President told reporters after briefing the UN Security Council.
Reports from the United Nations described Moscow’s eight-point plan detailing the functions of a “popularly elected president of Syria”. “We welcome any constructive ideas that will accelerate an end to this awful conflict”.
Although the Iranian leadership seldom publishes figures on their casualties in Syria, they can no longer tone down the extent of their intervention in the Syrian civil war, given the rising number of public funerals that the regime inadvertently holds to shore up support and justify its devastating regional policy. Both countries dismissed as premature USA and British assessments last week that a bomb likely was responsible. We have tried for four years and it didn’t work.
Russian Federation seemingly distanced itself from Assad earlier this month when a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said it was not crucial for him to remain in power.
“Our preparations for the Vienna meeting are based on the document that was adopted on October 30”, she said, referring to the previous meeting in Vienna.
Acknowledging that the matter of defining terrorists “is quite an issue, as you can imagine”, he explained that this was why there will be a special working group on the matter among the countries.
The head of a team of Russian cybersleuths who have uncovered what they argue is a much more robust Russian military role in Syria than officially claimed, says the Kremlin seems to be following the “hybrid warfare” playbook perfected in eastern Ukraine. The group is deeply suspicious of Russian Federation.
However, Assad would have a right to participate in the elections that the document proposes to take place after the constitutional reform.
The Russian document obtained by Western media says Moscow is offering “an approach to the settlement of the Syrian crisis”, not yet a formal peace plan. Instead, the draft simply prevents him from chairing the new constitutional commission. It also the follows the downing of a Russian airliner in Egypt, which is now widely seen as a terrorist act linked to Syria. This provision applies not only to the U.S. and Saudi Arabia with regard to rebel groups, but also to Russian Federation and Iran as sponsors of the Syrian army.
“As a result of the Russian aviation’s operations, the Syrian government forces have unblocked the Kweiras military aerodrome”.
Any plan for Syria must be agreed with the Syrian people and not be imposed by the outside, he said. “Regarding presidential elections there will be no talk about it. The president has a term and when it ends then we can talk about it”, he said.
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“So this type of momentum [which] we have been waiting for we need to support”, he said.
