Russian warplanes continued bombing in Syria and “fewer than 10” departed the region following President Vladimir Putin’s stunning announcement that his forces had accomplished their mission and a partial withdrawal had begun, Pentagon officials said.
Advertisement
Su-34 bombers are among jets that have left the Khmeimim air base in Syria and troops are “loading equipment, logistics items and inventory into transport” planes, the Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday on Twitter.
“They mentioned the fact”, says Moscow-based reporter Charles Maynes, “that there were foreign fighters, basically Russian citizens from the northern Caucasus, who were in the battlefields of Syria, and that it was safer for the Russians to take them on there in Syria than at home”.
A temporary ceasefire between Assad’s forces and opponents in the country introduced on February 27 has largely held, but does not cover the IS and Al-Nusra Front groups.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Russia’s pull-out will increase the pressure on the Assad regime to finally negotiate a peaceful political transition in Geneva.
Drobinin said Russian Federation would maintain its military presence at Hmeymim airbase as well as a major Mediterranean naval center at Tartus.
But hopes for a breakthrough at the talks remain remote, with both sides locked in a dispute over President Bashar al-Assad’s future.
The statement came a day after Putin announced the withdrawal of most of the Russian forces from Syria, timing his move to coincide with the resumption of Syria peace talks in Geneva.
The Syrian conflict has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced nearly half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million.
Damascus sparked Western anger by staking out an uncompromising stance before the talks, insisting that discussions on Assad’s removal were a “red line” they would not cross.
“If we are honest, the task was to overcome (Russia’s) global isolation over the Ukraine crisis”, he said, referring to a separatist war in eastern Ukraine between government troops and pro-Russian insurgents that the Krenlin is accused of fuelling. We know there have been big efforts from the [United] States and the Europeans that really made Putin take this decision.
“I am therefore ordering the defence ministry to begin the withdrawal of the main part of our military force from the Syrian Arab Republic from tomorrow”.
Earlier on Monday, after talks resumed in Geneva to end the conflict, Syria’s top government negotiator described as “positive and constructive” his meeting with Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations special envoy for Syria. The opposition, backed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey, continues to insist that Assad must step down at the start of a transitional period.
Advertisement
Syria’s main opposition welcomed the Kremlin’s withdrawal announcement, but said it would wait and see what impact the order would have on the ground.
