Syrian President Assad Backs Russian Peace Bid
“Russia has always been on the side of the Syrian people and given proof that it backs the people’s right to decide its own fate,” Assad said, as quoted by the state news agency SANA and cited by AFP.
After Bogdanov’s meeting with Assad, the Russian foreign minister was quoted as saying that he “was in contact with our American partners” for the first time, adding that Russia had proposed that “the Syrians come to Moscow to discuss political possibilities to resolve the crisis.”
“If Syrians want to meet in Moscow, then we will discuss this issue with the U.S. side and others,” Bogdanov was quoted as saying by the Russian news agency Ria Novosti.
Russia is hoping to host a peace process that would include meetings between government officials and opposition members.
Bogdanov’s visit to Damascus was the last leg of a regional tour that took the minister to Istanbul and Lebanon to meet with Syrian opposition groups, following a separate meeting in November with Syrian opposition leader Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib in Moscow, after which Khatib called for direct talks with the Assad regime to try and end the conflict.
U.S. Strategy on ISIS Under Attack by Lawmakers
The U.S. administration faced sharp criticism from lawmakers on Wednesday, who accused it of a “flawed” strategy to bring an end to the Syrian conflict, after a senior official admitted training for moderate rebels won’t begin until next year.
“After four months of the U.S.-led air campaign in Iraq and Syria, ISIS still controls essentially the same amount of territory that it did in the summer, and one of the reasons for this, in my opinion, is the limited nature of this effort,” said representative Ed Royce, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Royce went on to criticize the delays in the U.S. plan to train the moderate U.S.-backed opposition, saying, “These Syrian groups have suffered from dire ammunition shortages in the last several weeks.”
The moderate opposition is facing complete annihilation, an analyst told Syria Deeply, buckling under the strain of poor organization, limited resources and a three-front war against the Syrian regime, ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra.
On Tuesday U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called for authorization to continue the fight against ISIS, prompting criticism from U.S. officials, including John McCain, who said the Obama administration was “doing nothing” to stop Assad from killing his people.
Thus far the U.S.-led coalition has conducted around 1,100 airstrikes on ISIS in Iraq and Syria since September.
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