Tuesday, September 29, 2015

UNGA 2015: Obama, Putin exchange opposite views on Syrian crisis

US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have exchanged sharply opposing views on the Syrian crisis at the first day of debate of the UN General Assembly.

Obama stressed that the war in Syria is the result of the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad escalating repression and killings.

Obama said the US is prepared to work with any nation including Russia and Iran, but that Assad must still be taken out.

"I've said before and I will repeat there is no room for accommodating an apocalyptic cult like ISIL, and the United States makes no apology for using our military as part of a broad coalition to go after them. We do so with a determination to ensure that there will never be a safe haven for terrorists who carry out these crimes. And we have demonstrated over more than a decade of relentless pursuit of Al Qaida, we will not be outlasted by extremists."

For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who addressed the UN Assembly for the first time in a decade, called for a global response to the crisis alongside the current Syrian government.

"Today we give military-technical help to Iraq, Syria as well as to other countries of the region which are fighting terrorist groups. We believe it's a huge mistake to refuse to cooperate with the Syrian authorities, with the government forces, those who are bravely fighting terror face-to-face. We need to finally admit that apart from the government forces of President Assad and the Kurdish fighters in Syria, nobody, in reality, is fighting the IS group or other terrorist organisations."

The United States has been leading a coalition to fight the IS group in Iraq and Syria for more than a year.

However, the efforts have produced only limited results.

In the meantime, Russia has been increasing its military build-up in the region, co-operating with Iraq, Iran and Syria to share intelligence on IS.

More than 250-thousand Syrians have been killed in a civil war that started four years ago.

Around 4 million others are fleeing aboard, mainly into Europe, which increases the urgency to reach a deal to end the civil war.

Obama and Putin are set to meet later to further discuss the issue in a meeting in New York.

  CRI - china.org.cn
29/9/15
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1 comment:

  1. Russia considers joining anti-IS air strikes...

    Russia is considering whether to follow the US and its allies in conducting air strikes against Islamic State (IS) targets, President Vladimir Putin says.

    Mr Putin spoke after meeting Barack Obama on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly (UNGA).

    But the meeting, and the leaders' speeches at the UNGA, also highlighted splits about how to end the Syrian war.

    Russia said it would be an "enormous mistake" not to work with Syria's President Bashar al-Assad to tackle IS.

    On Monday, the US and France again insisted that President Assad must go. But in response, Mr Putin said: "They aren't citizens of Syria and so should not be involved in choosing the leadership of another country."

    Russia would conduct air strikes only if they were approved by the United Nations, he said, while also ruling out Russian troops taking part in a ground operation in Syria............http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34387433
    29/9/15

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