Meeting between top US and Russian diplomats tense

(April 12) The meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was far from friendly. Later, Tillerson also met with Russian president Putin.

Lavrov warned Tillerson publicly against any further U.S. military strikes on the Syrian regime. No meeting with Russian president Putin was scheduled although after being kept waiting for two hours he finally did have a long meeting with Putin that lasted about two hours. Tillerson had a friendly relationship with Putin and Russia while he headed the oil giant Exxon but there was no friendliness on exhibit publicly at this meeting. Tillerson told reporters: “There is a low level of trust between our two countries. The world’s two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship.” Although Putin had a somewhat frosty relationship with Obama and Trump promised during his campaign that he would promote better relationships with Russia, Putin said: "One could say that the level of trust on a working level, especially on the military level, has not improved, but rather has deteriorated."

While Russia still claims that Assad was not guilty of the chemical attack near Idlib in Syria, Trump has not only blamed Assad but US officials have suggested that Russia was complicit knew of the attack and bombed a hospital in an attempt to cover up what happened. At the meeting, Tillerson stepped back from that accusation somewhat:Tillerson has in recent days blasted Russia for incompetence or complicity in the Syrian chemical attack, saying Moscow was not living up to the terms of a 2013 deal to help eliminate Assad’s stockpile of such weapons. But when pressed Wednesday, Tillerson said the U.S. had “no firm information to indicate that there was any involvement by Russia” in the specific attack on Idlib.

Trump has been trying to avoid the issue of Russian influence and interference in the election which he won. He has changed his tune entirely on Syria. During the election campaign he resolved not to become involved in costly foreign wars such as that in Syria. However, after the alleged chemical attack by Assad, he bombed Assad's airbase and now is returning to a position of supporting regime change, after just giving up the policy. As a result, instead of this meeting being the start of a detente between Russia and the U.S. it was a tense affair with neither side budging from their main positions. They both did agree that they should fight against the Islamic State but that is about all except that they would again activate mechanisms to ensure that U.S.-coalition, Syrian and Russian planes did not collide over Syria.

Tillerson held firm to the U.S. position that Assad was to blame for the chemical attack, while Lavrov just as firmly held that Assad was not responsible and that the gases could have been the result of the bombing of a rebel warehouse that contained chemicals stored by the rebels, or that somehow the rebels could have staged the event in an attempt to blame Assad and gain the support of the U.S. and other western countries for their cause. A variant on the Russian version is set out by retired U.S. intelligence officer Colonel Patrick Lang. Lang argues that the US had been contacted by the Russians and knew they intended to attack the chemical storage warehouse. Tillerson said: “That the recent chemical weapons attack carried out in Syria was planned, it was directed and executed by Syrian regime forces and we're quite confident of that. It's important that Assad’s departure is done in an orderly way so that certain interests and constituencies that he represents feel they have been represented at the negotiating table for a political solution.” Lavrov put forth the Russian position: "With regard to the use of chemicals in the territory controlled by the opposition, on numerous occasions the Syrian government and the Syrian servicemen have given us absolute evidence about the use of chemical weapons. This was not some kind of distant information but information from the site.” It should be noted that both parties agree that there was a Syrian attack on the site. The disagreement is whether the Assad government carried out a chemical attack.

In other developments, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem is next to visit Moscow from April 13-15 for talks with Lavrov. Maria Zakharova a spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry said that the foreign minister of Iran would meet with the two on April 14 for a three-way talk. No doubt the three will be discussing a response to the actions of the U.S.

Russia and US to increase cooperation in Syria

John Kerry U.S. Secretary of State said on July 15 that Russia and the U.S. had agreed to cooperate in Syria against the Al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.

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Kerry said the cooperation was intended to "restore the cessation of hostilities, significantly reduce the violence and help create the space for a genuine and credible political transition." Kerry appeared alongside his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Kerry did not give any details as to what exactly had been agreed upon.

. The decision to have greater military cooperation with Russia is causing divisions within the US government, with the Pentagon challenging the view that Russia could be trusted to fulfill its part of any agreement. Kerry's statement appeared to reflect awareness of this skepticism as he said: "I want to emphasize, though, they are not based on trust. They define specific, sequential responsibilities all parties to the conflict must assume with the intent of stopping all together the indiscriminate bombing of the Assad regime and stepping up our efforts against al Nusra."

CNN has obtained a draft of the proposed agreement which would allow targeting and carrying out joint airstrikes against both the Islamic State and also the Nusra Front. CNN claims that the agreement does not necessarily apply to attacks on ISIS, as each country would reserve the right to attack the Islamic State independently. As part of the agreement the Assad air force would be largely grounded except in certain circumstances.

Pentagon Press Secretary, Peter Cook, told reporters: "The secretary of defense has been clear that he has been skeptical of Russia's activities in Syria and we have reason for that. There's plenty of reasons for that skepticism, And I think he maintains that skepticism." The Defense Department would like to see guarantees that Russia will keep its end of the bargain.

As reported in Sputniknews, an article in the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, claims the new agreement could involve a reset in relations between Russia and the US, and an "arms brotherhood" in the battle against terrorism. The article claims: "The fact that President Barack Obama gradually gives up his original goal — the overthrow of Assad, and gives priority to the fight against Islamic State has become noticeable long ago. The planned new partnership with Moscow would consolidate this course" Moscow has long been seeking such military cooperation with the US in Syria. The new development has resulted in Russian media replacing criticism of Obma by describing him as a new partner of Russia in Syria. In early July, Russian president Putin said that Western states were partners in the fight against terrorism, and that Russia wanted to work closely with the US on international issues. Kerry visited Moscow on July 14 and 15 with the US offer of cooperation. The meeting also discussed the sharing of intelligence data on terrorism. Detailed discussion of the offer can be found in an article in the Washington Post.

Assad agrees to sign convention banning chemical weapons

Syrian President Bahar al-Assad has signed a decree stating that Syria will accede to international law governing chemical weapons, according to a UN spokesperson.

The spokesperson for UN, secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon, said: "The secretary general has today received a letter from the government of Syria, informing him that President Assad has signed the legislative decree providing for the accession of Syria to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction of 1992. In their letter, the Syrian authorities have expressed their commitment to observe the obligations entailed by the convention even before its entry into force for Syria." Assad had already said in an interview on Russian TV that he was ready to sign the law. Assad said that he was placing his chemicals under international control at Russia's request, not because of the US threat of force. Assad repeated his position that he was not responsible for the chemical attack in the Damascus suburbs on August 21, but blamed terrorists who had weapons supplied by other countries.

 Assad promises that thirty days after signing the international convention, he will begin handing over data about his chemical stockpile. This is too slow a pace for John Kerry as he says in the appended video. On the face of it, Assad's announcement appears as a positive development. However after his announcement he added on qualifications that basically make his whole project completely unacceptable to the US and its allies. 

In a Russian interview, Assad said: "It doesn’t mean that Syria will sign the documents, fulfill the obligations and that’s it. It’s a bilateral process aimed, first of all, at making the US stop pursuing its policy of threats against Syria. Terrorists are trying to provoke American strike against Syria." Assad calls all the rebels terrorists. Assad went even further suggesting that no country in the Middle East should have weapons of mass destruction. Ensuring the Middle East was free of such weapons would mean no devastating and expensive wars in the area. However, there have been such wars even without the use of weapons of mass destruction for the most part. Assad made specific reference to Israel: “If we want stability in the Middle East, all the countries in the region should stick to [international] agreements. And Israel is the first state that should do so, since Israel possessed nuclear, chemical, biological and all other kinds of weapons of mass destruction." 

The diplomatic process will fail if both sides put conditions in their proposals which doom them from the beginning. This happened in the French draft resolution for the UN which would place the blame for the chemical weapons attack on Assad and also allow the use of force if Assad did not keep his commitments under the resolution. Russia would veto any such resolution. If Assad thinks that he can get Obama to take the use of force off the table that is also unrealistic and there is no way he can expect the US and its allies to stop providing weapons for the rebels. He is also dreaming if he thinks Israel would give up its nuclear weapons. Israel signed but has not yet ratified the international convention banning chemical weapons. Probably Assad will follow Israel's example on chemical weapons. 

 John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, flew to Geneva today along with a team of officials to study the Russian proposals and meet with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. I hope that much of what each side has said so far is just posturing, and that behind the scenes the Russians and Americans can actually work out a solution. However, so far there is little reason for optimism.

Kofi Annan of the UN and Russia's Vladimir Putin make no progress on Syria

     Although the Russian President claimed that he would do everything he could to support Anna's six point peace plan meant to end the violence in Syria neither side seems to be willing to make the plan work or  follow its directives. Violence has been constantly increasing. There is now an obvious civil war in Syria.
    This is Annan's first meeting with the Russian president since Putin won a third term. Annan hopes to avoid a Russian veto of a new resolution that threatens Syria with new sanctions. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov insisted he could "see no reason why we cannot also agree at the UN Security Council. We are ready for this". However, so far there is no sign Moscow is willing to take a harder line against the Syrian president or his regime.
   Putin maintained: "From the very start, from the first steps, we supported and continue to support your efforts aimed at restoring civil peace,"  However, Annan's efforts have so far come to naught as the fighting continues to increase rather than decrease. There is a Friday deadline for the monitors mission to end or receive an extension.
     A western backed resolution is being presented on Wednesday that threatens Syrian authorities with sanctions if they use heavy weapons in towns. Russia promises to block this move. The west insists that Assad step down as a condition of any resolution of the conflict. However Assad shows no sign of willingness to do so even though some officials who were part of his inner circle have now defected. For more see this article.

Russia accuses U.S. of arming Syrian rebels

At a new conference in Iran, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the U.S. of interfering in Syria and “providing arms to the Syrian opposition which are being used against the Syrian government.” Lavrov's volley could be in response to Hillary Clinton's remarks yesterday to the effect that Russia was supplying weapons and even attack helicopters to the Syrian government. Both parties are no doubt helping arm the side they support although in the U.S. it may be indirect through helping Qatar and Saudi Arabia deliver weapons through Turkey.

Lavrov insisted that the Russian weapon shipments were for air defense. The Russians will make it difficult and costly for any attempt to set up a no fly zone without the agreement of Syria. Lavrov argued that Russian shipments to prop up an existing government were in accordance with international law while providing arms to rebels was not.

The situation seems to get worse rather than better in Syria. Both sides appear to be involved in atrocities although with its superior fire power most of the killing of civilians is probably through continual Syrian attacks upon urban civilian within rebel controlled areas. There seems little hope left that the UN peace plan will work and both sides are routinely ignoring its terms. The situation is made even worse by the actions of Al Qaeda type terrorists. For more see this article.