Russian FM discusses coordinating with the US in Syria

[robert99]

Russian FM discusses coordinating with the US in Syria
http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/010920162
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov discussed US-Russian coordination in Syria on the phone with US Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday, the Russian Foreign Ministry has said.

Lavrov’s phone call with Kerry came the same day he told students at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations that Russia is “pressing for the earliest beginning of a full-fledged political dialogue in Syria.”

“The UN has the corresponding mandate, but it is not very active in the sphere so far,” he said, according to Russia’s Tass news.

Lavrov claimed that Russia is pushing for a negotiated settlement to the Syrian crisis.

“International terrorism is our common enemy,” he said. “We are convinced that combating international terrorism is possible only on the international law basis, without double standards and with respect for UN central role.”

 

[robert99]

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/New...3/US-Russia-nearing-deal-on-Aleppo-truce.html
The United States and Russia are nearing a deal that would set a 48-hour ceasefire in Aleppo, allow UN humanitarian access and limit Syrian government aircraft flights, diplomatic sources said on Friday.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the deal is not set in stone, key elements are still being discussed and critical stakeholders, including US Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Syrian opposition groups, are likely to have doubts.

If a deal were reached, it could lead to US intelligence sharing with Russia that would allow Russian forces to target fighters of the group formerly known as Nusra Front, which the United States views as a terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda.

“It’s not done yet,” said one source, saying US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov could announce a deal, if one is reached, as early as Sunday, though it appeared to be slipping to Monday or beyond.

 

[robert99]

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/New...grave-differences-with-Russia-over-Syria.html
US President Barack Obama said on Sunday that talks with Russia will be key in reaching any deal to end hostilities in Syria, but negotiations are difficult and grave differences remain between Washington and Moscow.

The United States has long been interested in finding a way to reduce violence and improve humanitarian aid in Syria but it would be difficult to get to the next phase if there is no buy-in from Russia, Obama told a news conference in the Chinese city of Hangzhou, where global leaders are convening for a G20 summit.
(Obama wants Assad gone, but Putin does n't)

 

[robert99]

http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/050920165
The United States’ presidential envoy to the anti-ISIS coalition, Brett McGurk, met with Kurdish allies in northern Syria last week, a State Department official told AFP on Monday.

His visit comes as the US’ support for the Kurdish forces has come into question after the Turkish army launched its military operation Euphrates Shield to clear Islamic State (ISIS) militants from the border and to stop Kurdish advances west of the Euphrates River.

McGurk met with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition force dominated by the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG).

The State Department spokesperson said McGurk promised “ongoing US support for the SDF in the fight against ISIL [ISIS], while emphasizing the need for strict adherence to prior commitments,” referring to an agreement between Washington and Ankara that Kurdish forces would retreat to the east bank of the Euphrates on the conclusion of the operation to liberate the northern Syrian town of Manbij.

McGurk also met with Turkish officials last week, the spokesperson confirmed. They discussed Turkey’s Euphrates Shield operation and the US support for it, as well as “planning for the Mosul campaign in Iraq, and closer US and Turkish cooperation to accelerate ISIL’s ultimate defeat.”

 

[robert99]

Russia, US cancel UN Security Council meeting amid fragile Syria ceasefire | News | DW.COM | 17.09.2016
UN Security Council members had been due to meet in New York on Friday afternoon for a hastily-called meeting on the fragile Syrian ceasefire, billed as the "last chance" to end the five-year war.

But Vitaly Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, said the meeting was canceled at the last minute as the US was unwilling to disclose exactly what was in the documents outlining the deal, hammered out last week by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

In a meeting with US security aides, US President Barack Obama expressed his concern that despite the truce, the Syrian government continues to block the flow of humanitarian aide.

A statement from the White House said Obama "emphasized that the United States will not proceed with the next steps in the arrangement with Russia until we see seven continuous days of reduced violence and sustained humanitarian access."

 

[robert99]

Syria conflict: Russia fears collapse of ceasefire - BBC News
Russia's military says rebel groups have increased attacks in Syria despite a ceasefire and has urged the US to act or be responsible for its collapse.

Russian generals said attacks by rebels, some US-backed, had increased sharply over the past 24 hours.

Gen Viktor Poznikhir said the rebel groups had "not met a single obligation" of the truce.

President Vladimir Putin earlier accused the rebel groups of exploiting the ceasefire to regroup.

Gen Poznikhir said Russia, an ally of the Syrian government, was doing all it could to rein in Syrian troops.

"If the American side does not take the necessary measures to carry out its obligations... a breakdown of the ceasefire will be on the United States," he said.

but,
Separately, the UN says it is still waiting to be able to deliver aid to the besieged city of Aleppo.

Some 20 trucks have been waiting since Monday for safe passage from Turkey into Syria and on to rebel-held east Aleppo.

However, the UN says it has not yet received permits from the Syrian government to allow the trucks into opposition areas, where at least 250,000 people are in desperate need of food and medicine.

 

[robert99]

O ****! Syria conflict: US air strikes 'kill dozens of government troops' - BBC News
US-led coalition air strikes have killed at least 62 Syrian troops fighting so-called Islamic State in the east, the Russian military says.

Aircraft flew in from Iraq and bombed Syrian troops near Deir al-Zour airport, allowing the IS jihadists to advance, the Russians said. The US has not yet commented.

Russia earlier expressed fears the current ceasefire in Syria could collapse, saying the US would be to blame.

Russia's defence ministry said that if the US air strikes turned out to be an error, it would be because of Washington's stubborn refusal to co-ordinate military action with Moscow.

Only if the current ceasefire - which began on Monday - holds for seven days, will the US and Russia begin co-ordinated action against the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham group, which was previously known as the al-Nusra Front, and IS.

Russia's defence ministry quoted a statement by Syrian army general command as saying that coalition jets had bombed a Syrian army position at Jebel Tharda near Deir al-Zour. The four strikes had allowed IS to advance.

also - PressTV-US-led raids kill 62 Syrian forces: Russia
Confirming the reports, the US military says it halted the attack after Russian officials said the targets were Syrian government forces and not Daesh Takfiri militants.

"Coalition forces believed they were striking a Daesh fighting position," said the statement.

(further to rub it in)
Since September 2014, the US and some of its Arab allies have been carrying out airstrikes against Daesh inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.

The US-led coalition has done little to stop Daesh's advances in Syria and Iraq. Some analysts have criticized the US-led military campaign, saying the strikes are only meant to benefit US weapons manufacturers.

The US-led aerial campaign in Syria has also been criticized for lack of efficiency and high civilian casualties. In July, a US airstrike reportedly killed at least 70 civilians, mostly women and children near Manbij in northern Syria.

It added that the coalition would never intentionally attack Syrian forces, and that it will review the bombing and circumstances which led to it.
(This could be the excuse needed to carry on as before against anti-Assad forces)

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says at least 80 soldiers were killed in the attacks.
Dozens of Syrian soldiers reportedly killed in strike
"Clearly it will be very interesting to see how Washington responds to this, what the facts are, and how this factors into the ceasefire," Al Jazeera's Gabriel Elizondo reported from Washington, DC. "This situation just went from complicated to much, much more complicated."

 

[robert99]

US-led coalition aircraft strike Syrian army positions, kill 62 soldiers – military
“We are aware of the reports and checking with Centcom and CJTF (Combined Joint Task Force),” the Pentagon told RT.
Coalition forces may have conducted air strike on Syrian military position: Pentagon
"Coalition forces believed they were striking a Daesh fighting position," the statement said, using an alternate term for the IS group. "The coalition air strike was halted immediately when coalition officials were informed by Russian officials that it was possible the personnel and vehicles targeted were part of the Syrian military."

 

[robert99]

Syria conflict: UK took part in strike that killed government troops - BBC News
The UK took part in a recent air strike in Syria that killed dozens of government troops fighting the so-called Islamic State, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has confirmed.

The MoD said it would "not intentionally target Syrian military units".

The list of countries engaged in the mistaken strike on Syrian government positions south of Deir al-Zour on Saturday underscores that this was indeed a coalition operation.

US, Australian and Danish aircraft were all involved as well as a British Reaper unmanned system.

Several things seem to have gone wrong.

 

[robert99]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/world/middleeast/obama-syria-united-nations.html
Mr. Obama’s public distancing, White House officials insist, does not reflect a lack of concern. On the contrary, they say the president is desperate for Mr. Kerry to negotiate a viable agreement with Russia that would halt the relentless bombing of civilians in Aleppo and elsewhere in Syria — if only because he does not see a viable Plan B to stop the carnage.

But as Mr. Obama’s presidency enters its final months, the negotiations with Russia have become a threadbare exercise, leaving a president who has long avoided military entanglement with Syria backing a policy that he himself believes is destined to fail.

This week, his frustration boiled over publicly. The situation in Syria “haunts me constantly,” the president said in an interview with the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, published Thursday in Vanity Fair.
(Syria together with Afghanistan is Obama's left over legacy from W - The US will have to invade Grenada again to boost it's ego)

 

[robert99]

http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/290920162
The United States has confirmed they have supplied light arms to Arab groups within the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), British newspaper the Guardian has reported.

The SDF is a coalition of armed groups fighting ISIS in northern Syria; it is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and is a key US ally in Syria.

“We are eager to go after Raqqa now. There is a real opportunity to crush the caliphate,” the Guardian quoted a senior US administration official saying, noting that tensions between Turkey and the Kurds have lessened since the YPG withdrew to east of the Euphrates, leaving the west bank under Turkish and Free Syrian Army control after those forces seized them from ISIS this summer in Operation Euphrates Shield.

 

[robert99]

US protecting Syria jihadist group - Russia's Lavrov - BBC News
The US is trying to spare a jihadist group in its attempts to unseat Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, Russia's foreign minister has told the BBC.

Sergei Lavrov said the US had broken its promise to separate the powerful Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly known as al-Nusra Front) and other extremist groups from more moderate rebels.

Jabhat Fateh al-Sham is linked to al-Qaeda.

A US state department spokesman said the Russian allegations were "absurd".
...
Mr Lavrov says that it is US policy towards Syria that is floundering, insisting that American officials have lost control of both events and of themselves.

There is an element of truth here - at least in policy terms. The US has no real alternative to Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts to deal with the Russians. There is no credible "plan B".

 

[robert99]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/30/world/middleeast/john-kerry-syria-audio.html
Audio Reveals What John Kerry Told Syrians Behind Closed Doors
The 40-minute discussion, on the sidelines of last week’s United Nations General Assembly in New York, provides a glimpse of Mr. Kerry’s frustration with his inability to end the Syrian crisis. He veered between voicing sympathy for the Syrians’ frustration with United States policy and trying to justify it.
At the meeting last week, Mr. Kerry was trying to explain that the United States has no legal justification for attacking Mr. Assad’s government, whereas Russia was invited in by the government.
Several of the Syrian participants said afterward that they had left the meeting demoralized, convinced that no further help would come from the Obama administration. One, a civil engineer named Mustafa Alsyofi, said Mr. Kerry had effectively told the Syrian opposition, “You have to fight for us, but we will not fight for you.”

“How can this be accepted by anyone?” Mr. Alsyofi asked. “It’s unbelievable.”

In the meeting, he and the others pressed Mr. Kerry politely but relentlessly on what they saw as contradictions in American policy. Their comments crystallized the widespread sense of betrayal even among the Syrians most attractive to Washington as potential partners, civilians pushing for pluralistic democracy.

One woman, Marcell Shehwaro, demanded “the bottom line,” asking “how many Syrians” had to be killed to prompt serious action.
(The Kurds and the Syrian opposition are so f*@ked. They thought the US would help them but the US is just helping itself. )

 

[robert99]

http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/011020164
“If the US launches a direct aggression against Damascus and the Syrian Army, it would cause a terrible, tectonic shift not only in the country, but in the entire region,” Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned in comments reported by Russia’s official RT news website.

Her warning came as Assad’s forces captured a strategic hill in the northern city of Aleppo, with Syrian and Russian jets providing air cover.

If Assad were to be ousted, there would be a vacuum that “so-called moderates, who are, in reality, not moderate at all but just terrorists of all flavors, would fill; and there will be no dealing with them,” Zakharova predicted.
(The US does need to ask itself what it wants from Syria)

 

[robert99]

Syria conflict: Hospital in rebel-held Aleppo 'bombed again' - BBC News
... the US state department confirmed it was suspending negotiations with Russia after it said Moscow had increased bombardments of civilian targets.

Russia and the US were due to convene in Geneva to try to co-ordinate air strikes against jihadist groups, but American officials were told to return home.

Spokesman John Kirby said in a statement the decision was "not taken lightly", but that both the Russian and Syrian governments had chosen a military course of action "inconsistent with the Cessation of Hostilities".

He also said Russia had "failed to live up to its own commitments - including its obligations under international humanitarian law".
PressTV-US suspends Syria talks with Russia
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the US threat to suspend talks on Syria constituted "an emotional breakdown."
US officials have indicated that the failure of diplomacy has left the White House no choice by to consider alternatives, including some use of military force, in Syria.
PressTV-'Russia delayed plutonium deal as warning'
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says his country’s suspension of a pact with the US on the disposal of weapons-grade plutonium is a signal to Washington that it should not use the language of force with Moscow.

In a Monday statement published on Russia’s Foreign Ministry website, Lavrov emphasized that the postponement of the agreement was intended as a gesture to the US that speaking to the Kremlin in the language of sanctions and ultimatums would not work.
Russia suspends weapons-grade plutonium deal with US - BBC News
In a decree, President Vladimir Putin accused the US of creating "a threat to strategic stability, as a result of unfriendly actions" towards Russia.

Moscow also set pre-conditions for the US for the deal to be resumed.

Under the 2000 deal, each side is supposed to get rid of 34 tonnes of plutonium by burning it in reactors.

President Putin submitted a bill (in Russian) to parliament setting a series of pre-conditions for the US for the agreement to be resumed, including:

• reduction of US military infrastructure and troops in countries that joined Nato after 1 September 2000
• lifting of all US sanctions against Russia and compensation for the damage they have caused

The US - as well as the European Union - imposed a series of sanctions against Russia following the annexation by Moscow of Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula in 2014, and Russia's support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.

see also http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/world/middleeast/us-suspends-talks-with-russia-on-syria.html
and U.S. breaks off diplomatic talks with Russia to end bloodshed in Syria

 

[robert99]

http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/031020161
A Russian delegation in Syria has told Kurdish and government representatives that establishing a federal system in the country is the only way to prevent Syria's partition, Kurdish diplomats who attended the meeting told Rudaw.

It also suggested that the country’s official name be changed from the Syrian Arab Republic to the Democratic Republic of Syria, the diplomats said.

"Only federalism can preserve Syria's unity as a country," the leader of the Kurdish Left Party in Syria, Salih Gado, told Rudaw, quoting Russian mediator Colonel Oldvornikov Alexandrovich, who is also the commander of Russian forces in Syria.

"The Russian delegation showed strong support for a federal system in the country and had a road-map to achieve that," said Gado, who represented the Kurdish administration at the September 17 meeting at the Hmeymim air base, south of Afrin city.
...
Syrian Kurdish party official Ahmed Qasim told Rudaw the Russians could effectively push Damascus to declare a federal system in the country, even without Kurdish participation.

"Russia could take up this question with the regime since the real power is still in the hands of the country's president, who could easily change the system in Syria," Qasim said.

"But I'm afraid Moscow is not serious about their proposal," he added.

 

[robert99]

PressTV-Czech leader slams US role in Syria
Czech president raps ‘illegitimate’ US involvement in Syria
The Czech leader has slammed the US for its ‘illegitimate’ involvement in the Syria conflict, saying Washington is to blame if its policies end in failure in the Arab state.

“Nobody officially invited the United States to Syria. And if their mission fails, that will be their own fault,” Czech President Milos Zeman said in an interview with local media, Russia’s Sputnik news agency reported Saturday.

Since 2014, the US and dozens of its allies have been pounding Syria and Iraq with the alleged aim of uprooting the Takfiri terror group of Daesh.