Russia is engaged in “classic asymmetric warfare” in Syria by using its military clout to prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while saying it is attacking Islamic State (IS) militants, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said on Sunday.
Russia last week began striking targets in Syria — a dramatic escalation of foreign involvement in the civil war that has been criticized by the West as an attempt to prop up al-Assad, rather than its purported aim of attacking IS fighters.
“It looks like a classic bit of Russian asymmetric warfare — you have a strong propaganda message that says you’re doing one thing, while in fact you are doing something completely different and when challenged you just flatly deny it,” Hammond said in an interview in Manchester, England.
Photo: EPA
He said Britain had held discussions with Russia, but kept on getting the same response — that Moscow was attacking IS militants in Syria.
“You try talking to the Russians,” he said. “They just keep repeating their position — that is by the way also the Iranian position — and it is just incredible.”
He said that Britain needed “absolute clarity” that al-Assad would not be part of Syria’s future.
“That’s not some random bee in the bonnet that I’ve got; it’s that without that commitment, we will never get the broad spectrum of Syrian opposition groups to sit down and agree around a table how we take forward the discussion about Syria’s future,” he said.
Hammond dismissed proposals put forward by Russia and Iran for elections, saying Syria was “a million miles away” from being able to hold a free and fair vote.
“In a country where 250,000 people have been killed and 12 million people have been displaced, half of them outside the country, how can you talk about free and fair elections?” he said.
Hammond said the key to ending the suffering caused by the four-year civil war was a managed transition to peace — even if it meant al-Assad retained power temporarily.
“If the price for doing that is that we have to accept that Assad will remain as titular head of state for a period of time, do I really care if that’s three days, three weeks, three months or even longer? I don’t think I do,” he said.
However, Hammond said that for such a transition, al-Assad should make a pledge not to run in any future election and that he would give up control over Syria’s security apparatus.
He added that there was no agreement with Moscow and Tehran on such a transition.
“The key is that there must be a transition — at the moment there is no agreement with the Russians and the Iranians even that there should be a transition,” he said.
Hammond also said Russia represented a threat to the international system upon which Britain’s security depended, saying it had shown that it did not respect diplomatic norms.
He pointed to Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region last year as an example of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s approach to international law.
However, he said that Moscow still had an important role to play in the Middle East and that Britain could not afford to ignore Russia’s role in negotiating peace in Syria.
“It would not be in our own interests to say that we will not talk to the Russians about the situation in Syria because we object so strongly to what they are doing in Ukraine,” he said.
“We have to compartmentalize these disputes,” calling for Russia to re-engage with the international system, he said.
“We just need a Russia that accepts there are rules in the system, and you can’t throw your toys out of the pram and resort to military force every time you don’t get your way,” he said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in