In a speech Thursday at a conference in Russia’s southern resort of Sochi, Putin said Syria’s leaders “should establish working contacts with those opposition forces that are ready for dialogue”.
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The Russian airstrikes have allowed Syrian troops and their allies from Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group to launch multiple ground offensives in northern, central and southern Syria as well as in the rebel-held suburbs of the capital, Damascus.
“We don’t interfere with them and they don’t interfere with us”, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said in a radio interview, tersely summing up Israel’s accommodation with Russian Federation.
YouTube video from the fighting in Syria has thrown up images of a rarely seen Russian weapons system – the TOS-1 “Buratino” multiple rocket launcher.
A military victory over the militants “will not solve all problems, but it will create conditions for the main thing: a beginning of a political process to encompass all healthy, patriotic forces of the Syrian society”, Putin said.
“It is also important to agree not only the targets of the adversary, our common enemy – terrorism – but to also agree on those areas that are being controlled by the patriotic opposition so that we could also help it fight IS”, Lavrov said, without specifying which group Moscow deems the “patriotic opposition”.
Syrian President Assad flew into Moscow on Tuesday for a meeting with Putin.
“I hope with Russian pilots’ help, our military will advance and defeat terrorists so that we could return to our homes”, said??ahmad Attan who served in the Syrian military and was wounded in fighting.
The top diplomats from the four countries agreed to meet again in an expanded format with representatives from other nations next week, but the only concrete result of this week’s talks appeared to be an agreement between Jordan and Russian Federation to coordinate military operations in Syria.
In Berlin, Kerry said the US, Iran, Russian Federation and Europe agree Syria should be united and that Syrians should choose their own future leadership, but “one thing stands in the way of being able to rapidly move to implement that and it’s a person called Assad, Bashar Assad”.
The US’ notorious $500 million train and equip program and an overwhelming presence of foreign-funded fighters in Syria are enough to debunk the myth of a real “civil” war in Syria.
From President Vladimir Putin on down, Russian officials have reveled this week in comparing their military intervention to the failure of U.S.-led air strikes to push back Islamic State.
Why is there a war in Syria? A well-informed Turkish source of mine was telling me that both Turkish and U.S. officials have been trying to mend ties between the two countries, which have been at one of the lowest levels since the USA invasion of Iraq in 2003. “The overwhelming response of the people inside and outside of Syria sent a powerful message to the world of loyalty to their country and to the government that is now safeguarding it”. He also said that the next talks on Syria could take place next Friday. “No, we need to make more serious efforts in order to make such a claim”. “But for Russia it’s about geopolitics and interests, so we can talk to the Russians”, he said.
Russian Federation is accused of bombing rebels opposed to Assad, such as the Free Syrian Army, rather than IS. “And there will come a time perhaps where we will talk to Iran but we are not at the moment at this point of time”, he said. Syria, he explained, is after all a close ally of both the Islamic Republic and the Shiite militia.
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The talks were part of a flurry of diplomatic activity to end more than three weeks of bloodshed which has raised fears of a new Palestinian intifada, or uprising.
