Vladimir Putin on Sunday used the runup to his meeting with President Obama at the United Nations to taunt the U.S. for failing to thwart the Islamic State and to voice his full support for Syria’s embattled president.
In an interview with CBS’ "60 Minutes” the Russian president gave his unequivocal support to Syrian strongman Bashar Assad.
Obama has long said Assad must leave to achieve lasting peace in the country where ISIS militants control over half of the territory.
"We support the legitimate government of Syria,” Putin said.
"And it’s my deep belief that any actions to the contrary in order to destroy the legitimate government will create a situation which you can witness now in the other countries of the region,” Putin added, pointing to ongoing lawlessness in Libya.
Putin and Obama will address the United Nations General Assembly on Monday and also have a closely watched meeting on the sidelines.
It will be their first face-to-face meeting in nearly a year.
In advance of the encounter, Putin’s swagger highlighted how Russia has taken the initiative in the bloody Syrian conflict that has lasted 41/2 years, cost over 220,000 lives and created a refugee crisis of a scope not seen since World War II.
"It’s only the Syrian people who are entitled to decide who should govern their country and how,” Putin said, dismissing cases in which Assad has used ruthless tactics against his own people as merely Western propaganda.
The Russian leader also has begun a military buildup in Syria for reasons that U.S. officials have said remain unclear.
"Russia will not participate in any troop operations in the territory of Syria or in any other states. Well, at least we don’t plan on it right now,” he said.
He derided the Pentagon’s recent recent admission that an effort to train more than 5,000 Syrian rebels had yielded only four or five fighters after about 50 others were captured, wounded or fled in their first encounter with extremist militants.
"It turns out that just 60 were properly trained, only four or five with weapons are fighting, while the rest of them simply took the American weapons and ran over to join ISIS,” Putin scoffed.
Adding to the diplomatic challenges Obama must navigate when meeting with Putin, Iraq’s military announced it will begin sharing "security and intelligence” information with Syria, Russia and Iran to help combat ISIS.
The move could further complicate U.S. efforts to battle the extremists without working with Assad and his allies.
www.ann.az
Follow us !
