USA president Barack Obama has reiterated his administration’s belief that Syria’s civil war will not end until Syrian president Bashar al-Assad leaves power.
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French President Francois Hollande has already agreed to full-scale cooperation with Russia, the Russian officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the negotiations are confidential. This week, the U.S. Central Command said it hit 116 tanker trucks used to transport smuggled Islamic State oil in Syria, and various targets in and around Raqqa, the de facto extremist capital.
“The decision on the circumstances in which to proceed along this path is in the hands of the member states of the European Union and should in particular be synchronized with the implementing of the Minsk agreements”, Juncker wrote.
“The Islamic State is trying to achieve its goals of creating the so-called caliphate without any relation to what is taking place in Syria and without any relation to who and how treats Bashar Assad”, the Russian foreign minister said. The Russian President, thus, became the first major leader to state the “secret” as it were, saying, “I provided examples based on our data on the financing of different Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) units by private individuals”. The Syrian government, the Ambassador here said, was clear that it would not participate in any clandestine operation, and for France to be part of the fight against Daesh it would have to re-open its Embassy and work with the coalition that is serious about tackling Daesh and now consists of the “Syrians and the Russians”. And Obama has shown little interest supplanting Russia’s position with USA troops. The country also has suffered increasing casualties from the war.
The wheels are in motion for a process that could possibly usher Assad out.
“The bottom line is: I do not foresee a situation in which we can end the civil war in Syria while Assad remains in power”, Obama said. Diplomats hope to have a transitional government six months later, with U.N.-supervised elections within 18 months, although previous efforts have failed.
But in a television interview with Italy’s Rai television, Assad said there could be no transition schedule for elections while swathes of Syria remained out of government control. He said it could take months for Russian Federation, Iran and the Syrian regime to recognize that a political solution including Iran was untenable. The United States charge against Russian Federation when it moved militarily into Syria was that President Putin was there to just help President Assad.
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Moscow, meanwhile, issued a statement declaring its right to self-defence in the wake of the downing of the Russian passenger plane in Egypt. It vowed to hunt the perpetrators “until all persons involved in this crime are identified, found and held accountable wherever they are”. “If you get rid of them, everything collapses”.
