Russian firms to rebuild war-torn Syria

The different countries hope to eventually reach agreement on a “multilateral framework for a successful political transition in Syria which leads to a government not led by Bashar al-Assad”, Kirby said.

Putin and King SalmanThe two exchanged views on “all the questions associated with resolving the Syrian crisis, including four-way talks”, between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his USA, Turkish and Saudi counterparts, it said.

The government has not officially acknowledged the loss, but Syrian officials told VOA the seizure was only successful because IS militants attacked on one side of the road while rebel fighters allied to al-Qaida’s branch in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, a fierce rival of IS, were pressing on the other side.

Such is the state of the global effort to revive a peace plan for Syria.

So, whereas the US-led air forces have averaged around six strikes per day during the past year (actually less during this last month) the Russians started with eight, were soon up to a couple of dozen, and have mounted as many as 94 strikes in a single day. “We look forward to expanding to countries that have a great deal of concern about this”.

It is unlikely that President Assad will yield to a more representative power structure to save what is left of Syria. Assad won 89 percent of the vote.

US President Barack Obama’s administration has not committed ground forces to back opposition and Kurdish rebels fighting the Islamic State in Syria, but has 3,500 troops in Iraq. More than 4 million have fled since the civil war began.

And the Islamic State, in turn, has been opportunistically leveraging Russia’s intervention, quickly pressing an offensive that had stalled north of Aleppo on the rebel-held towns of Marea, Tal Rifat and Azaz. Putin reportedly spoke with important Sunni leaders in the Gulf states and Jordan to brief them on his conversations with Assad.

The bloody race between war and diplomacy is likely to continue amid bad news coming out of Syria, the writer said. In the backdrop of this power play, and caught in the middle, is the helpless majority of Syrians.

Turkey, the USA and Saudi Arabia want Assad to leave, blaming him for the conflict that has caused the deaths of more than 250,000 victims as well as displacing more than half of the population.

The Syrian presidency said on Tuesday political initiatives could not work in Syria before terrorism had been wiped out, sticking by its long-held position on how to end the war after its Russian allies called for new elections. Moscow has also asked Washington to help it establish contact with the moderate opposition factions, such as the Free Syrian Army, to set up a political dialogue, but did not get a USA response.

But attempts to mediate a peaceful transition of power to an interim unity government have stalled, and Moscow appears bent on keeping its ally Assad in office.

Foreign minister Sergey Lavrov claimed that Ban Ki-moon’s decision to withdraw his last-minute offer in January 2014 also had a negative impact on the UN’s reputation as an independent arbiter in the conflict. We may well find that after three or four or even 10 years that the crisis remains ongoing, still inflamed, and Assad remains at the head of the ruling regime, even if he only controls a small part of the country’s overall territory.