Assad rejects Syria transition deadline

It is believed that groups affiliated with IS planted a bomb on a Russian passenger plane in Egypt and organized bombings in Ankara and Beirut.

(Kayhan Ozer/Anadolu Agency via AP, Pool, File).

Putin instructed his military to work out a joint Russian-French action plan against IS militants as he pushes the idea of establishing a broad anti-IS coalition that would involve both Russia and the West.

(Alexei Druzhinin//Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File).

(AP Photo/ Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, File). The tide of glob… The United States has also launched thousands of airstrikes against Islamic State positions in Iraq and Syria.

President Vladimir Putin of Russian Federation and Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi of Egypt have called for greater worldwide efforts against terrorism.

The Vienna talks were pioneered by Russian Federation in hopes of ending the conflict in Syria that has led to the deaths of more than 250,000 victims and displaced more than half of the population.

“Assad is called a magnet, which attracts all terrorists”.

In recent days the US has seen Russian Federation begin focusing some of its strikes on the Islamic State, but the vast majority have targeted moderate rebels fighting Assad, said an official who wasn’t authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity. So, it wasn’t in Syria, it didn’t start in Syria, it started in Iraq, and it started before that in Afghanistan according to what they said. “Assad has created the state in his image”, said Landis.

France agrees with Obama that Assad’s continuance in power and the war against his own people have provided fertile territory for terrorists.

Russian Federation and Iran would have to be a big part of engineering such a solution. There were also reports that a Russian artillery unit might be supporting Assad’s forces in central Homs province. Even as French President Francois Hollande takes on the role of bridge builder with back-to-back trips next week to Washington and Moscow, powerful centrifugal forces are still pulling the would-be partners apart as competing national interests challenge efforts to translate that newly shared aspiration into a sustained collaboration over time.

Assad’s continued grip on power has seriously strained relations between the U.S. and France – firm backers of Syria’s uprising – and Russian Federation, one of the regime’s staunchest allies. Assad’s political future, Putin said, is a “secondary issue”, to be decided later. The biggest sticking point remains the fate of President Bashar al-Assad.

Iran, another major ally, wants to maintain a counterbalance to Israel and keep another Shiite ally in the region.

Assad said the Islamic extremists who have trained in Syria were only able to do so thanks to “the support of the Turks and the Saudis and Qatari, and of course the Western policy that supported the terrorists in different ways”. The country also has suffered increasing casualties from the war. The war against the IS should be as much ideological as physical. He was equally vague about the timetable for such an election, noting that opposition and Western demands for an 18-month transition were not viable.

Obama was speaking after a meeting with Philippine President Benigno Aquino in Manila.

But Assad is not likely to leave willingly anytime soon.

In an interview with Rai TV broadcast on Wednesday night, the Syrian president stressed that no deadline for the start of a political transition could be set while parts of the country were not controlled by his government.