The recently elected president Donald Trump held the first direct communication with Russian president Vladimir Putin, and they discussed the Syrian situation, the Kremlin stated.
According to a statement released by the government of Russia, Donald Trump has the same vision as President Putin in which both countries share the same enemy: international terrorism and extremism. In this press release, the Kremlin informed that both leaders talked about several alternatives related to the resolution of the Syrian conflict.
One day after this call took place, Putin ordered the armed forces to commit an airstrike on Syrian ground, a military strategy that had three weeks without being used. While this happened, the Congress of the US pronounced and passed a bill that places sanctions on the Bashar al-Assad regime, alongside Iranian and Russian close collaborators. The targets of the law are the Syrian Central Bank and Syrian Oil Industry, in addition to any person or organization that worked with Syrian army companies or intelligence services.
The reasons in which the Congress based the approval of the sanctions are war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Syrian regime. According to UN numbers, in the Syrian war, there have been more than 250,000 casualties. Assad military forces are accused of being directly responsible for 180,000 of those deaths.
Bashar Al-Assad’s posture
After the defeat of the Democrat Candidate Hillary Clinton for the Presidency of the US, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad showed himself very pleased. The Syrian government expressed its relief alleging that she was the one who though that terrorist, Islamist, and jihadist groups were “moderate rebels.”
In addition to this statement, head of the country al-Assad established his position regarding the next POTUS. He said that he considers Trump as a “natural ally” as long as he maintains US position on fighting international terrorism.
“We cannot tell anything about what he’s going to do, but if he is going to fight the terrorists, of course we are going to be ally, natural ally in that regard with the Russian, with the Iranian, with many other countries,” the Syrian president told Portugal’s RTP state television.
Assad continued saying that the promises that the Republican Candidate did on the presidential campaign are certainly visionary, but wonders if the future-President can deliver this body of actions. He declared that Trumps has “countervailing forces within the administration” and “mainstream media against him,” and that these factors can play negatively to the objectives that he purposed.
Trump said in the second presidential debate that he “didn’t like Assad at all, but Assad is killing ISIS.” Also in a declaration that he gave to The Wall Street Journal, he said that right now there is no certified information on who exactly are the rebels.
The Syrian President also criticized the US for interfering with the foreign relations of several countries. He accused the American government of thinking that they are the police or judge of the world and claimed that they don’t have this condition.
Syrian Rebels are scared of Trump’s Administration
Declarations made to Reuters by Zakaria Malahifji, the head of the political office of an Aleppo-based rebel group, revealed the frightening future that seems to be in front of Syrian’s regime opposition. He thinks that the situation will become difficult for them “because of Trump’s statements and his relationship with Putin and Russia.”
An anonymous source, close to the American-Syrian conflict, told The Business Insider that this turn of events (of Trump winning the Presidential election) was very unfortunate. This source also established that they are scared for their lives (about Syrian opposition), and they also are afraid to criticize Trump because he could “let Russia bomb the opposition into oblivion.”
However, according to former Chief of the Turkish Army’s General Staff Gen. Ilker Basbug, this new method of diplomatic relations between the US and Russia could end the Syrian war very quickly. Under the Obama administration was very unlikely to see a communication between the White House and Assad regime, but with Trump as the leader, this might change.
“The only way out of this [war] is to establish a direct dialogue with not only Syria and Russia, but with Turkey and Iran as well (…) The highest priority must be given to ending the civil war (…) There is no other option to end this crisis,” Gen. Basbug said in a press conference in Washington.
While the next year it’s the 210th anniversary of the first diplomatic relation between Russia and the US, both countries could be motivated to reverse the tension and begin the application of actions that work for a common interest, as the Kremlin statement reported it. The US-Russia international collaboration could mean the key for ending the Syrian civil war, although this would cause the rebels that were supported by Obama Administration to be defeated.
Source: Business Insider