Washington, Riyadh and Ankara – which all back groups battling against Assad – were sounding out Lavrov after the embattled Syrian strongman made a surprise visit to Moscow to meet President Vladimir Putin this week.
Advertisement
“Of course the Syrian leadership must establish working contacts with those opposition forces which are ready for dialog”, the Russian leader told the Valdai discussion club in Sochi on Thursday.
Russian Federation has been bombing targets in Syria since last month.
Syrian President Assad is the problem and not the solution where the crisis in Syria is concerned, French President François Hollande said on Friday, revealing different views among European countries concerning the fate of the Syrian president.
Anti-government protests developed into a civil war that, four years on, has ground to a stalemate, with the Assad government, Islamic State, an array of Syrian rebels and Kurdish fighters all holding territory.
“One shouldn’t play with words differentiating between moderate and immoderate terrorists. What is the difference?”
World oil prices rose Thursday on bargain-hunting after a sharp decline the day before, although analysts said the market remains hobbled by an oversupply…
Churkin criticized the U.S.-led coalition, which has been conducting anti-ISIL air strikes over Syria for more than a year, saying “they have been bombing with no visible progress”. Secondly it demonstrates that Assad is more secure.
The USA and other Western powers have questioned Russia’s primary motive in the airstrikes that began September 30 and have backed up a Syrian government offensive in central and northwestern regions.
Even if Putin did want to trade Assad away, says Vitaly Naumkin, Russia’s internationally respected authority on the Middle East, “the Iranians are absolutely opposed”.
Why is there a war in Syria?
Another Putin goal has been to bring Moscow and Washington together for a security dialogue in which Russian Federation is treated as an equal.
As for Putin, he expressed his administration’s readiness to assist Syria both militarily and politically, according to SANA. “We’re going to be his sponsor.'”, Landis said.
The Syrian state news agency SANA said the government seized two villages south of the provincial capital Aleppo in the north, an area where Free Syrian Army rebels and other Islamist factions are based.
So how to shorten the war?
The Obama administration is still focused on “getting a political transition in Syria” at the Vienna talks between Kerry, Lavrov and their counterparts from Saudi Arabia and Turkey, State Department spokesman John Kirby said.
Putin said Russia’s main objective in Syria is to establish peace.
“For Putin, it’s important now to act not only as a military victor but as a political peacekeeper as well”, Trenin said. “Russian Federation and Iran and the Syrian government have close cooperation”, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Al-Jubayr, who had come to Vienna to attend a conference on Syria in the Russia-U.S.-Saudi Arabia-Turkey format, said they deemed Russia’s interference in Syria as very unsafe because it was escalating the conflict.
The Syrian-American Medical Society, which operates several facilities in Syria, said a deadly strike earlier this week “adds to the previous estimated eight Russian air strikes on hospitals in Syria, as well as the 313 attacks on medical facilities since the start of the conflict“.
Advertisement
In a statement posted on his Facebook page, the prime minister said it was up to the Syrian people and not up certain ethnic or political groups to choose the country’s leader.
