Posted on 05/07/2017 7:10:17 PM PDT by Texas Fossil
BEIRUT, Lebanon — United States and allied aircraft will be banned from flying over much of Syria as part of a deal struck by Iran, Russia and Turkey to foster a cease-fire in the Syrian war, a senior Russian diplomat said Friday.
But a State Department spokesman later said that the agreement, which the United States did not sign, does not “preclude anyone from going after terrorists wherever they may be in Syria.” The spokesman, Edgar Vasquez, said Russian officials’ interpretation of their own agreement “makes no sense.”
A senior State Department official was at the talks in Astana, Kazakhstan, that led to the deal, which went into effect at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. The agreement aims to establish four “de-escalation zones,” where Syrian government and rebel forces are supposed to stop fighting each other.
The accord raised the prospect that after years of government opponents asking the United States and its allies for a no-fly zone to protect civilians from the Syrian military’s bombings, it could end up being Russia, Syria’s ally, that imposes one.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
It is worth reading. This and excerpt.
Syria Ping
Agreement?
Oh yeah, we’re totally going to stop bombing ISIS in Syria, because Russia says so.
Not.
Also: they’re not enforcing no-fly zones. They’ve just (supposedly) stopped bombing. Assad, Iran, Hezbollah and all of the others are still going full steam in the conflict. There have been over 30 airstrikes on Al-Lataminah today alone. And it’s not all that clear that Russia has actually stopped bombing - at least in northern Hama.
“But a State Department spokesman later said that the agreement, which the United States did not sign, does not “preclude anyone from going after terrorists wherever they may be in Syria.””
They said this at the State dept? So, when the Syrians or Russians go after Al Nusra and our other terrorists in the safe zones, what then?
I cant see any reason why we would want the Russians and Syrians to stop bombing rebels. I know they are “our” sunni terror groups such as Al Nusra and others, but they are all head choppers.
We are getting in deeper there when we need to pull out 100%.
yep, marriage made in hell.
Yes, and we took out an ISIS offensive from West of Tabqa city. (before it even got started) Destroyed tank and the personnel in the assault group. Air attack ended them. Period.
Yes, I read the statement.
I suspect Turkey must be writing the news. smile.
Little Denmark has dropped more bombs on ISIS than Russia. Russia fights only for Assad and has from time to time acted like ISIS airforce when going after other Assad’s enemies.
Tabqa is nearly fallen, thank god. That was very smart, progressing from west to east; if the US and Kurds had taen after Raqqah first, I have no doubt that ISIS would have opened or even destroyed Tabqa dam and rapidly flooded the areas in Raqqah near the river. Probably in the middle of the night.
~ should read “had taken Raqqah”
An unfortunate reality, although it’s not very popular on this site as it goes against many peoples’ here preconceived notions about Russia.
But it’s very much true. They know that the west won’t tolerate ISIS existing, so they ignore it so that a reason for Assad to continue existing remains. They’ve only fought against ISIS on a few select occasions (most notably, Palmyra)
We shouldn’t be doing the Saudi’s dirty work.
No we should not, but certainly have.
There are still ISIS in the control positions in the dam. Unless it has been taken today.
They were using humans as shields to prevent snipers killing them quickly.
That’s about all they control in Tabqa now, however.
They won’t move on to downstream targets like Raqqah until the dam is under their control.
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