Russia, US planes in safety test over Syria

Friday’s worldwide meeting on Syria did not produce any agreement over the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, although key players found a few common ground over the solution for the war-torn country. But yesterday (Tuesday), the head of Iran’s elite revolutionary guards suggested the nations disagreed over their end game.

“We are not saying that Assad should leave or stay”, RIA news agency quoted her as saying. While Republican lawmakers at Wednesday’s hearing pressed Obama administration officials to bomb more frequently, Democrats questioned whether sending US special forces to Syria will amount to a “slippery slope” of ever-increasing American involvement in the civil war, now in its fifth year.

Russian Federation offered Tuesday to host a meeting between representatives of the Syrian government and rebel groups next week in Moscow, and said it has given Saudi Arabia and the USA a list of the opposition figures it is working with.

It was not clear whether any had been accepted.

“The coordinates of all of these targets were given to us by opposition representatives”, senior military official Andrei Kartapolov said, without specifying which groups Moscow had cooperated with.

The coalition has accused Moscow of primarily hitting more moderate groups fighting Mr Assad’s regime.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet United Nations Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura in Moscow on Wednesday to discuss attempts to start a dialogue between Damascus and the opposition, Moscow’s foreign ministry said.

Regime forces launched major offensives in several parts of Syria after Russian Federation began its intervention on September 30, with more than 1,300 air strikes carried out so far.

“We welcome China, Russian Federation and other countries, who would like to join [the TPP], as long as they want to raise the standards and live up to [them] … doing business openly, transparently and accountably”, John Kerry said in an interview.

“Russia’s military intervention has dangerously exacerbated an already complex environment”, said Anne Patterson, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, adding that Russian airstrikes predominately have targeted areas where Islamic State militants are not present.

On the battlefield, a newly formed U.S.-backed Syrian rebel alliance advanced against the Islamic State in the northeast province of Hasaka on Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

Russian bombers “destroyed a large fortified location of Islamic State militants”, including an air-defense gun and a tank, the defense ministry said in a statement.

Last week, U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said that Putin, who has ordered his military to take a ramped-up role in Syria, is “winging this”, rather than carefully crafting a comprehensive strategy.

At least 23 people were killed on Tuesday in air strikes across the city.