Russian Federation is ready to improve ties with the United States and work with whomever is elected its next president, President Vladimir Putin said yesterday.
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Donald Trump has praised “highly respected” Russian President Vladimir Putin after he called the leading Republican presidential candidate an “outstanding” politician.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said there was “some movement” in the talks on Syria, adding that one goal of the NY meetings was to clarify the timeline for peace talks between the government and opposition.
However, he described the Syrian opposition’s demand that Assad must leave as soon as peace talks begin as a “nonstarting position, obviously”. Both Russia and Iran have long insisted Assad’s fate should be decided in a nationwide vote.
“The most important task is to move forward towards a real ceasefire”, Steinmeier added, in a broadcast by his ministry. But several questions still hang over the process. The talks between the regime and opposition are targeted for early January.
Western officials say a recent meeting in Saudi Arabia of opposition figures made significant headway in coming up with an opposition bloc, though Russian Federation and Iran have questioned the legitimacy of the Saudi-hosted discussions. Even if a ceasefire is possible, who would monitor it? And who would lead the fight against the ISIL group and others, such as Al-Qaeda’s Al-Nusra Front, left outside the peace process? Earlier in Moscow, he indicated that gaps between the USA and Russian Federation have narrowed, saying “we did reach some common ground today and agreement with respect to the complexity of this issue of terrorist groups”.
The resolution would be a rare gesture of unity in a Security Council that has been bitterly divided on Syria.
Hijab, elected on Thursday by an opposition body set up in Saudi Arabia last week, said Security Council resolutions and the Geneva 1 2012 roadmap provided for a transition without the president and a transitional governing council with full executive powers.
According to Putin, Russia has always been very certain about how to settle the Syrian crisis.
Putin reportedly said, when talking to reporters on Thursday, that Trump is a “really brilliant and talented person” and the “absolute leader in the presidential race”. Moscow maintains Assad is the legitimate authority in the country.
“The goal there is to continue to try to better define what we think the political transition and the process itself should look like; to try to put more fidelity on the notion of a cease-fire”, said State Department spokesperson John Kirby.
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“How can we say that we do not welcome it?”
