Putin calls Syria’s Assad to congratulate on Aleppo success

“It is simply a statement of the fact”, the Russian Foreign Minister remarked.

At the end of their trilateral meeting, the foreign ministers of the three regional countries issued a joint statement on agreed steps to revitalize the political process to end the Syria war.

Their return marks the end of at least one brutal chapter in Syria’s near six-year war.

Forces supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad moved in to take control of the destroyed city sector that was rebel-held for four years.

The three brokers are not without their differences: Turkey, unlike Russian Federation and Iran, has long said that Dr. Assad should step down, for example.

Militants from Iranian proxy Hezbollah are fighting alongside Assad regime forces and a collection of Iranian-sponsored global Shia jihadists from Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan against Syrians opposed to Al-Assad’s continued rule in Syria.

Also on Friday, Putin addressed an annual conference, saying that the evacuations in Aleppo would not have been possible without his country, Iran, and Turkey and the goodwill of President Assad. What the media is reporting about Aleppo these days is not news, it is propaganda.

“We must know who directed the killer’s hand”, Putin said at a televised meeting at the Kremlin on Monday.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, along with his Russian and Iranian allies, seized control of the city on December 15 after a brutal all-out assault on rebel-held areas. The Syrian government refers to all opposition forces with the blanket term “terrorist”.

“All previous attempts by the United States and its partners to agree on coordinated actions were doomed to failure”, Mr. Shoigu said, according to Reuters.

Russian Federation led with airstrikes on Aleppo which has now fallen to pro-government forces.

An armed man identified as Mevlut Mert Altintas, 22, a former police officer, opened indiscriminate fire on Monday in an arts gallery in Ankara where Ambassador Karlov was opening an exhibition of Turkish photographic works featuring Russian Federation. “Don’t forget Syria!” – a reference to Moscow’s role in backing Syria’s assault on the city politically and militarily with airstrikes.

“Russia understands that nobody gives you anything, you just have to take it, and in this environment, with the United States retreating faster than the other side can advance, it’s just a free for all”, Andrew J. Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told the New York Times.

The frustrations on both sides have been evident in the U.N. Security Council, where the USA and Russian ambassadors have exchanged harsh words over the situation in Aleppo. And wasn’t Monday’s dramatic assassination of Ambassador Andrey Karlov, President Vladimir Putin’s personal friend, supposed to put Turkey and Russian Federation on the outs?

The Washington Post was more blunt, stating that the assassination “might have been expected to derail a fragile detente between the regimes of Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan”. A war has been raging ever since, now well into its sixth year.

Russia’s defense ministry said in October that Moscow was poised to transform the Tartus facility into a permanent base, without providing a timeline for its transformation.

Commenting on the bigger picture, Laylaz said, “With Trump in office – and of course the decreasing strategic value of the Middle East for the United States – Washington’s sights will be set more on China and we will no longer witness a heightened USA presence on matters such as Syria”.

Whether or not Washington had a direct hand in the murder of Ambassador Karlov, evidence points to the killing having been carried out by someone affiliated with the U.S. proxy forces in Syria.