Contents tagged with Syria
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Erdogan: Turkey will not join coalition that includes Syrian government
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan refuses to take part in a coalition of Syria, Iran, Iraq and Russia against the so-called Islamic State.
President Erdogan made this known in an interview with Al Arabiya, which will be broadcast in full on December 27th. In response to the invitation to join the coalition, Erdogan told Russian President Vladimir Putin that he could not sit next to a president whose legitimacy is questionable. President Erdogan was referring to Syrian President Bashar al- …
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Turkish Foreign Ministry Accuses Russia of Killing 600 Civilians in Syria
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, Mevlut Cavusoglu, stated that on December 20th 200 civilians were killed during Russian airstrikes in the Syrian province of Idlib. The Ministry has accused the Russian Federation of the murder of more than 600 Syrian citizens as a result of these air strikes, as reported by the Turkish Press Agency Anadolu. Cavusoglu also noted that 90% of the areas bombed by Russian aircraft are held by the Syrian opposition and include residential neighborhoods. …
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Josh Earnest: Putin’s words on Syria due to economic isolation
The economic sanctions that the West imposed against Russia over its actions in eastern Ukraine have led Russian President Vladimir Putin to seek a unified resolution to the situation in Syria, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest stated.
Speaking during his annual end-of-the-year news conference, Putin said he was convinced that Washington was prepared to "move toward settling the issues that can only be settled through joint efforts." The Russian President went on to assert that the …
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Herbst: War in Ukraine is more important than Russian invasion of Syria
The former U.S Ambassador to Ukraine, John Herbst, in his interview with the Voice of America, stated that U.S Secretary of State, John Kerry, is not the best candidate for negotiations with Russia regarding the cessation of the war in Ukraine. According to him, his soft diplomacy will not convince the Kremlin that it’s time to pull back.
“The point is that during negotiations with the Kremlin, U.S Secretary John Kerry doesn't speak harshly in regards to Russian crimes, such as the Crimean …
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Free Syrian Army Denies Military Cooperation with Russia
Representatives of the "Free Syrian Army" (FSA) told Reuters that Russian aviation not only supports them, but also regularly bombs rebel forces.
Groups identifying themselves as FSA, together with Kurdish police, formed a new coalition called the "Democratic Forces of Syria" (DFS), which has received U.S. support for fighting ISIL.
The Alliance has acknowledged that Russian air strikes indirectly helped them during the recent battles with the enemies of "al-Nusra", a member of terrorist …
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Wyborcza: Putin’s orders bring the world to the brink of war
At a meeting with representatives of the Russian Ministry of Defense, President Vladimir Putin ordered the military to be ready as the threat of war was imminent, as reported by the Polish newspaper "Gazeta Wyborcza.” Putin has ordered the Armed Forces in Syria, "to act with the greatest severity," and will not hesitate to destroy, "all targets that pose a threat to the Air Forces of Russia or its military infrastructure throughout the globe."
In practice, this would mean if, for example, …
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Linkevičius: The West often acts as an advocate of the Kremlin
In an article written in the magazine Delfi, Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Linas Linkevičius, wrote that the West has again called for "meaningful dialogue" with Russia, and it shows that the wars in Georgia and Ukraine have no changed much.
"It seemed like we had to learn a lesson. As soon as one country pulls the reins, the Kremlin takes it as a sign of weakness, as an opportunity or even the motivation to act more energetically", he wrote.
However, according to Linkevičius, this …
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U.S. Treasury: ISIS Sells Most of Its Oil to the Assad Regime
The "Islamic State" organization has received approximately half a billion dollars from the oil trade. Most of this amount is directed to the Syrian authorities and some part goes to Kurdish areas and Turkey.
According to the Treasury of the United States, about one third of the capital of the terrorist organization Islamic State (ISIS) comes from trading black market oil. The IS’s holdings are estimated at about $1.5 billion, said a senior official of the U.S. Treasurer on Thursday, …
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Stoltenberg: we will not exchange Ukraine for Syria
The West does not plan to exchange Ukraine in its efforts to resolve the situation in Syria, as stated by the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, in an interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais.
"We will not exchange Ukraine for Syria and vice versa. Russia is the country with which we cooperate, particularly in the effort of finding political solutions to these conflicts," he said.
"We never intended to isolate Russia", the Secretary General of NATO said.
As reported last week, the …
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The Guardian: Five-year-old visiting relatives in Syria killed by a Russian bomb
Five-year-old Raghat loved singing, nail polish, teasing her toddler sister, the alphabet she was starting to learn at nursery, and goofing for the camera. In the last photos of her, taken barely 10 minutes before the Russian bombs landed, she shows off a new bracelet and freshly painted nails with glee, then squeezes a kiss from her squirming baby sister.