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The games in Syria

Sep 22,2015 - Last updated at Sep 22,2015

There are conflicting, or rather confusing, signals from the US about the recent Russian deployment of military warplanes in Syria.

On the one hand, US Secretary of State John Kerry said he was “disturbed” by the deployment of Russian airplanes in Syria while, on the other, he appears to at least tacitly accept such a military buildup.

The Russian deployment came literally hours after US Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter held talks with his Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoygu.

“Clearly the presence of aircraft with air-to-air combat capacity and surface-to-air missiles raises serious questions” about the purpose of Russia’s military buildup in Syria, said Kerry.

Is it that the US is worried about the probability of some form of confrontation between Russian forces in Syria and aircraft from either the US-led anti-Daesh coalition or Israel?

The US accepted to hold military talks with Russia on Syria, for the purpose of coordinating and even cooperating in the military efforts to fight Daesh.

Yet, the Russian deployment of military forces in Syria constitutes the first-ever Russian expeditionary force deployed outside its territory since its war in Afghanistan where it, like the US later, was dealt a humiliating defeat.

However, seeing the two superpowers hold military and not political talks seems odd and defies logic, giving rise to speculation that there is more to the US-Russian rapprochement and cooperation on Syria than meets the eye.

The US appears wobbly again on Syria, having signalled that it no longer holds to its “traditional” position that Syrian President Bashar Assad relinquish power before there can be a political solution to the Syrian crisis.

In the last few days, Washington seemed to have changed that stand, with Kerry saying on Saturday that the US was prepared to negotiate the timing and conditions for Assad to step down from power.

He was quoted as saying that his country would accept Assad for a while: “We’ve said for some period of time that it doesn’t have to be on day one or month one or whatever. We’re not being doctrinaire about the specific date or time.”

The problem now is whether Assad is prepared to negotiate. 

“Really negotiate? Is Russia prepared to bring him to the table and actually find the solution to this violence?” asked Kerry.

 

That, only the days ahead can answer. Till then, it seems that Moscow has scored another diplomatic victory over Washington.

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