SIGforum.com    Main Page  Hop To Forum Categories  The Lounge    Interesting Play: Russia Effectively Tells Israel And Iran To Go Ahead And Destroy Each Other In Southwestern Syria
Go
New
Find
Notify
Tools
Reply
  
Interesting Play: Russia Effectively Tells Israel And Iran To Go Ahead And Destroy Each Other In Southwestern Syria Login/Join 
Gracie Allen is my
personal savior!
posted
quote:
We Can't Force Iran Out Of Syria, Russia Tells Israelis
Dan Williams, David Stamp, US News & World Report, 7/30/2018 (Reuters)

Russia cannot compel Iranian forces to quit Syria, Moscow's ambassador to Tel Aviv said on Monday, rebuffing Israel's long-standing demand that it should work to ensure their total withdrawal from the country.

Ambassador Anatoly Viktorov said Moscao could equally do nothing to prevent Israeli military strikes against Iranian forces in Syria, which along with Russia and Tehran-backed Lebanese militias are supporting President Bashar al-Assad in combating rebel fighters.

With Assad now in almost complete control of southwestern areas abutting the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan Heights, Viktorov told Israel's Channel 20 television in an interview that only Syrian army troops should be deployed there.

Last week an Israeli official said Russia had offered to keep Iranian forces at least 100 kn (60 miles) from the Golan Heights ceasefire line. The offer came up during a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, but Israel rejected it as insufficient, the official said.

Viktorov defended the Iranians' presence in Syria.

"They are playing a very, very important role in our common and joint effort to eliminate terrorists in Syria. That is why, for this period of time, we see as non-realistic any demands to expel any foreign troops from the entirety of the Syrian Arab Republic," he said.

"We can talk with our Iranian partners very frankly and openly, trying to persuade them to do or not do something," he said. But asked whether Russia can force Iran out, he answered "We cannot."

While formally neutral in the seven-year-old civil war next door, Israel has carried out scores of air strikes against suspected emplacements or arms transfers by Iranian or Lebanese Hezbollah guerillas in Syria, apparently unimpeded by the Russian defense systems deployed there.

A military hotline Israel and Russia set up in 2015 has also helped the countries avoid inadvertently clashing over Syria.

Viktorov expressed disapproval of the attacks on Syria, but added: "We cannot dictate to Israel how to proceed...It is not up to Russia to give Israel freedom to do anything, or to prohibit Israel to do anything."

Original text at http://www.usnews.com/news/wor...ussia-tells-israelis

It sounds like Putin's either winding things down in Syria or trying to. What's the easiest way for Russia and Assad to eventually be able to brush aside all of the other regional players? Tell Israel and Iran to go ahead and kill each other first. Israel isn't going to stay there anyway, and Iran's ambitions were always going to be a PITA for Assad and Putin anyway.
 
Posts: 27291 | Location: Deep in the heart of the brush country, and closing on that #&*%!?! roadrunner. Really. | Registered: February 05, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
  Powered by Social Strata  
 

SIGforum.com    Main Page  Hop To Forum Categories  The Lounge    Interesting Play: Russia Effectively Tells Israel And Iran To Go Ahead And Destroy Each Other In Southwestern Syria

© SIGforum 2024