Alternately pugnacious and conciliatory, with his customary swagger and salty language, President Vladimir Putin held forth on a broad array of topics in his traditional year-end news conference on Thursday, even throwing in a glowing assessment of Donald Trump.
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Since Turkey shot down a Russian warplane that it said had violated its airspace, Putin has engaged in a war of words with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and ordered a number of retaliatory measures.
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Alicia White and Officer Caesar Goodson, whose case is up next and who is facing the most serious charges of the six officers. Prosecutors put Porter on trial first because they were hoping he would be a key witness in the trials of Sgt.
While Putin said he was prepared to work whomever is elected President, he singled out Trump as “a very lively man, talented without doubt”.
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Cruz and Rubio have also been duking it out over the USA Freedom Act, which curtailed the US’ gathering of phone metadata. And Trump seems more than happy to engage with Bush. “I’ve gained great respect for the Republican leadership”, he said.
“If they (U.S. and Russia) want to fight terrorism as they say, why not get rid of the main problem, the government that is targeting civilians in Syria everyday?” “Of course not. Russian Federation is not that kind of country”, Putin said. “I believe that the Syrian authorities should be OK with it, too”. It would pick up more in following years, he added. “But he is an absolute leader of the presidential race”.
He said that the peak of the crisis had passed and stabilisation was under way. The Washington Post slammed him in an editorial, saying his statement conveyed the message that the “power structure in Damascus that has granted Russian Federation a naval base and served as a conduit for Iranian weapons to the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon can remain”.
State Department spokesman John Kirby in Washington rejected Russian claims of preconditions that must be reached for the next round of worldwide Syria talks to take place in NY on Friday.
He said: ‘He is a very outstanding man, unquestionably talented.
“Couldn’t they have just picked up a phone?”
U.S. diplomats concede that the plan is ambitious and that success is not certain, but they are hopeful that Russian Federation and Saudi Arabia will cajole their rival Syrian allies to the table. “But Russia is not such a country”. “We only have increased our presence there”.
One senior official traveling with Kerry said he would be exploring ways to bridge gaps on both the political transition and the cease-fire as well as making the point that Russia’s military operations in Syria need to focus on the Islamic State. “Let’s see if they can fly there now”. Ankara says it, too, has evidence Russian Federation has been benefiting from the black market trade. “I don’t know if the Americans wanted it or not”, he added.
Putin said that he was satisfied with the leadership of Russia’s Central Bank, which steeply hiked interest rates to prevent inflation, despite the pain that the move has dealt to businesses and borrowers.
“As soon as we work out the mechanisms that would reliably ensure the safety of our people, we will remove all restrictions”. He is the absolute leader of the presidential race’.
“He’s saying he wants to go to another level of relations – closer, deeper relations with Russia”, Putin continued.
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“Turkey used to violate Syrian airspace all the time”, Putin said. But he made clear there was no end in sight to Russian air strikes in support of forces loyal to president Bashar al-Assad.
