Russian FM denies agreement on Assad’s future in Syria

“It seems to me there are no longer any doubts that it is simply unacceptable to put forward any pre-conditions for joining forces in the fight against terror”, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said after meeting his counterpart from Lebanon Gebran Bassil in Moscow. In that respect I personally would see a ceasefire being agreed in the way people are now talking, allowing potentially Assad’s army and Hezbollah and their Iranian backers and others to turn their attention on IS in a sequential operation.

“Our Western partners realised the lack of prospects for the approach that many of them had taken”, Russia’s top diplomat said, referring to the insistence in the West that Assad should immediately step down. But if there is now a shared priority of defeating “Daesh”, as it is sometimes known, trust remains frayed. Putin can stick to his line about how Western powers exacerbated the ISIS threat by sustaining the Syrian rebellion, portraying the Americans as coming to see things his way.

It has always said its main target is Islamic State militants, but most of its bombs in the past hit territory held by other groups opposed to its ally Assad. The Islamic State now has two most heat-up countries, and at least three military powers against it, Russian Federation for its reprisal of the plane crash last month, and France for the November 13 Paris explosions and shootings, plus the ongoing U.S.-led coalition bombings.

But Russian Federation has also continued to pound Syrian rebel groups that are backed by the West, as well as insisting that Mr Assad must stay.

It’s a marked shift for him and Obama who said previously that Assad should go immediately to make way for a political change in Syria.

Earlier today in the Philippines, Barack Obama responded to Russian and French proposals for an anti-ISIS coalition by suggesting that he’d join up – as soon as the Russians dispensed with Bashar al-Assad.

Hollande also said France should honor its duty to offer protection to refugees who flee countries like Syria and Iraq “because they are being tormented by the same who have attacked us”.

The new spirit of cooperation saw Russian Federation announcing on Tuesday that its missile cruiser Moskva would cooperate with the French military, which is bringing its aircraft carrier task force into the Mediterranean.

However, Mr. Obama also said that differences remained over the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Kremlin’s support for the Syrian leader. “The same as we did after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001”, Lavrov said.

Putin’s response? “We will find them [ISIS] in any place on the planet and will punish them”, he vowed.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius said he was surprised by the letter, which he said did not reflect a common view of European Union member states and made no reference to European Union sanctions against Russian Federation over its annexation of Crimea and the destabilization of eastern Ukraine.

“When the Charles de Gaulle comes to the shores of Syria, joint military work will be organized”, he said, according to Russian news agencies.