President Barack Obama said he would not turn the Syrian civil war into a “proxy war” between the United States and Russian Federation as the two countries launch air strikes on different opponents of President Bashar Al-Assad’s government.
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“Russia has no border with Syria, but I have a 911-km-long border, “Erdogan has pointed out, adding his country is also looking after 2 million people who fled the war in Syria”.
But Obama wouldn’t say when asked by a reporter if the he felt Putin had been dishonest in not out-rightly revealing his intentions during the conversation in White House before the strikes. “This is not a few superpower chessboard contest”.
The Syria campaign is the first time Moscow has sent forces into combat beyond the frontiers of the former Soviet Union since the USSR’s disastrous Afghanistan campaign of the 1980s, a bold move by Putin to extend Russia’s influence beyond its neighborhood.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist and monitoring group based in Britain, said Russian airstrikes had killed 39 civilians in the previous four days.
In a joint statement Friday, the governments of nations fighting ISIS – including the United States, the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia – said Russia’s military strikes “constitute a further escalation and will only fuel more extremism and radicalization”.
Friday prayers were canceled in insurgent-held areas of Syria’s Homs province hit by Russian warplanes this week, with residents concerned that mosques could be targeted, according to one person from the area.
He added: “From their [Russia’s] perspective, they’re all terrorists”.
Alexei Pushkov, the head of the foreign affairs committee in Russia’s parliament, said the campaign – which began on Wednesday – could last for three to four months.
He also said, “I also think there’s a difference between running for president and being president”.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking alongside Mr Hollande after the summit, said: “Both of us insisted on the fact that IS is the enemy that we should be fighting”.
He said that during his meeting with Putin, he underscored the importance of transitioning Assad from power.
He also said his country’s army was “capable of cleansing the country of those terrorists”.
Iraq’s most powerful Shi’ite cleric called for a global war against Islamic State on Friday, a day after the prime minister said he would welcome Russian air strikes against the group on Iraqi soil.
How has the world reacted?
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“It’s absolutely clear that Russian Federation is not discriminating between ISIL and the legitimate Syrian opposition groups and, as a result, they are actually backing the butcher Assad and helping him and really making the situation worse”, said Cameron, using an alternative acronym for IS. Hezbollah and Iran are believed to have troops and officers on the ground, while a Western-led coalition and Russian Federation are carrying out air strikes.
