Hopes for Syria peace dim after Assad, Obama remarks

Now, with a settlement for Syria more pressing than ever, Obama has no choice but to take Putin seriously.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow would be ready to work with the Western coalition striking IS if its members respect Syria’s sovereignty.

It is unclear whether he was referring only to Islamic State (IS) militants or also to Western-backed rebels. “So no peaceful solution can be found without his participation”, the top Russian diplomat said on Thursday in an interview with Radio Russia.

While Obama said Russian Federation has been a “constructive partner” during talks in Vienna, he later dented Russia’s optimism that a deal is near with the US and France to coordinate the fight against Islamic State.

Russian Federation opposes ISIS but supports Assad.

Meeting in Vienna the day after Friday night’s Paris attacks, Russia, the United States and powers from Europe and the Middle East agreed on a two-year timeline leading to Syrian national elections that left many questions unresolved.

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, said, “The political future of current leadership should only be decided by the people in democratic elections”.

As for his own role, Assad claimed the presidency was “not his property”, and that he was merely holding the position “on behalf of the Syrian people”. But following ISIS’s claim of responsibility for the downing of a Russian passenger plane, which Moscow confirmed Tuesday was caused by a bomb, the Russian attacks now seem to be hitting actual terror targets.

Simply put: America can’t afford to balk at dealing with world leaders, even those we may consider adversaries.

“We must be implacable against all forms of violence”.

Speaking on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Manila, Mr Obama said it was “unimaginable” that Mr Assad remain in power in Syria. However, he said France will “do the necessary verifications” to make sure refugees entering the country don’t pose a security risk.

Mr. Obama noted that Mr. Trudeau still is reviewing the Trans-Pacific Partnership but said he expected they would establish “the kind of high-standards agreement that protects labor, protects the environment”.

“Hopefully there will be a conference in a few days, somewhere in a week, 10 days to two weeks to bring them together”, Kerry told reporters following a closed-door briefing with the Senate Intelligence Committee on the U.S.’s response to recent terror attacks in Paris.

The HMS Defender will provide air cover for the French vessel, the ministry said in a statement on its website Wednesday. “We receive reports about the loss of life among terrorists from the Syrian side”, Kartapolov said.

The fact remains, though, that the United States and its allies don’t want to see Assad benefit from any effort to dislodge IS from territory it controls in Syria – unlike in Iraq, where the Baghdad government is considered legitimate by the world community. He’s held back from asking Parliament to vote on the issue for lack of cross-party support.

“But that’s why it’s so important, as we’ve talked about before, to get the opposition groups into this discussion”, he added.

Only 16 months after the declaration of its “caliphate” based in Mosul, Iraq, during which time ISIL focused its efforts on territorial expansion in Iraq and Syria, the group appears to have made a strategic decision to go worldwide and target its enemies on their home turf, and thus try to supplant the declining al Qaida brand as the leader in global jihad.