Bashar al-Assad Promises to Retake All of Syria

Medvedev criticized Western powers’ refusal to collaborate with Russian Federation in Syria.

“Sustained delivery will begin this week, first to the areas where it is most urgently needed and then to all the people in need throughout the country, particularly in the besieged and hard to reach areas”, said Kerry.

The Saudi offer of ground troops exploits an increasingly untenable situation.

Government forces were repelled in an effort to retake the hills earlier this week, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports. “If we negotiate, it does not mean that we stop fighting terrorism”.

He would retake the entire country, although this could take a long time, he said.

They are also close to sealing the Turkish border, lifeline of rebel territory for years.

The agreement falls short of a formal ceasefire, since it was not signed by the main warring parties – the opposition and government forces. Saudi Arabia, backed by Turkey, contributed their bit by persuading rebel negotiators to leave Geneva in the wake of the Aleppo offensive. Some of the vetted groups have received military training overseen by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

“We hope that in the modern world with technology and communications that this process is accelerated, but things take time”.

The ceasefire announcement came from Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov at an global conference on Syria in Munich.

Moscow has always said that those two jihadist groups are the principal targets of its air campaign. Nusra fighters often operate in areas where other rebel groups are also active.

The Iranian foreign minister reiterated the Islamic Republic’s stance, saying, “As I said, again, first and foremost it is important for everybody to realize that there is no military solution to the problem in Syria”.

But he said the commitment needs to be verified and it doesn’t mean the Islamic State group won’t be targeted.

The picture gets even murkier with a section of the Munich agreement that excludes not only Islamic State and Nusra but unspecified “other groups designated as terrorist organizations by the United Nations Security Council”.

What happens in Syria has a far more immediate regional fallout than events in Yemen where the Saudi military is struggling to win an unwinnable war against Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

The United Nations has said that only around a dozen of 116 access requests to reach Syrians in need had been granted in the past.

He went on to say that he saw a risk that Turkey and Saudi Arabia, key backers of the opposition, would intervene militarily in Syria. Russiahas said Saudi ground troops would make the war last forever.

President Assad also said his government “fully believed in negotiations and in political action since the beginning of the crisis”, but stressed that negotiations have nothing to do with uprooting terrorism.

With the proviso that Nusra, which is linked to al-Qaida, can still be bombed, Russian Federation puts the United States in a hard position; the insurgent groups it supports cooperate in some places with the well-armed, well-financed Nusra in what they say is a tactical alliance of necessity against government forces.

Diplomats from the countries backing the talks will meet on Friday in Geneva to discuss the aid plan.

Egeland told reporters Friday that he hoped aid could roll in “once we have all the access that we need”.

“This is an agreement struck because of an emergency, but it lacks any real political dimension, ” he said.

“Obviously it’s been hard”, Kerry said.