“If we wait while doing nothing then we are taking the risk of letting Daesh [Islamic State] claim the Palestinian cause as its own”, Fabius said, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.
Advertisement
Mikhail Bogdanov, the Russian deputy foreign minster, said the group could meet by October the RIA news agency reported from Moscow. “This is not yet coordinated”.
On Friday, USA defense officials said members of the U.S.-trained New Syrian Force (NSF) gave the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front six pickup trucks and ammunition that had been supplied by the U.S.-led coalition in exchange for safe passage. “We believe that it’s driving out the terrorists“, he tells NPR.
“For the first time, two sides, rather than negotiating peace after war, engaged in dialogue and understanding before the eruption of conflict”, Rouhani declared, referring to what was previously a mounting threat of a U.S.-led military campaign against Iran.
Putin said Russia’s support for the Assad government was based on the United Nations Charter.
And they warn the beneficiary of the shift in policy will not only be the Assad regime, but also the Islamic State terror group with more fighters likely to join the extremists in reaction.
The Obama administration is concerned that Russia’s real intention is to shore up Assad and strike at other factions seeking to topple him under the pretext of fighting worldwide terrorism.
A senior UK Government official said the talks with Mr Rouhani had been “good, considered, thoughtful and in a constructive spirit”.
He mocked U.S. plans to train up to 5,400 Syrian rebels to fight the group. He was convicted of spying for the US, a charge he denies.
In his speech to the 193-nation United Nations General Assembly, Rouhani emphasized the need for an investigation into “the causes of this incident and other similar incidents in this year’s haj“.
A Russian military buildup in Syria, a longtime ally, has raised concerns in Washington. If Assad goes now, Rouhani says, extremists will step in.
“There is no other solution to the Syrian crisis than strengthening the effective government structures and rendering them help in fighting terrorism,” he said.
“Russia will not participate in any troop operations in the territory of Syria or in any other states”. “We have never broken our commitment”.
Robert Ford, a former US ambassador to Syria, played down the chances of rapid progress, saying the big powers disagree on what the main problem is and how to address it.
There’s growing acknowledgment among the US and its allies that the previous hard-line isolationist strategy toward the Syrian leader will not shorten the civil war. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan have come to the same conclusion.
Mr Obama – who will later have a rare face-to-face meeting with his Russian counterpart – signalled a new willingness by the West to contemplate a role for Assad in some form of transition that sees him removed from office.
But short of sending in ground forces an option Western countries are not willing to entertain the stalemate in the war against the Islamic State group is likely to persist.
The spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar province, Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, said another eight officers were wounded in the attack in the Achin district, bordering Pakistan. Its commander has said that the nuclear deal is unacceptable.
Elsewhere in the country, a auto bomb near a cricket match in the eastern Paktika province killed nine people and wounded 33, according to the Interior Ministry. “You got to fight them,” he said on “60 Minutes“.
Advertisement
Information for this article was contributed by Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Matthew Lee, Robert Burns, Angela Charlton, Cara Anna, Steven R. Hurst, Rahim Faiez and Lynne O’Donnell of The Associated Press; and by Andrea Rothman and Thomas Penny of Bloomberg News.
