Press. voanews.com.
President Barack Obama on Thursday cast extreme doubt on whether the
United States could trust Russia as a partner to end the Syrian civil war. “I’m not confident that we can trust the Russians and Vladimir Putin,
which is why we have to test whether or not we can get an actual cessation of
hostilities,” Obama told reporters at the Pentagon after meeting with members
of his National Security Council to discuss the fight against Islamic State.
The president said Russia might not be able to help end the violence,
“either because they don’t want to, or because they don’t have sufficient
influence over [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad." “That’s what we’re
going to test,” Obama said, “We go into this without any blinders on.”
The Syrian government and its Russian allies are battling rebels for
control of an area in and around Aleppo. Fighting has raged for more than two
months, and monitors from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights report at
least 6,000 people have been killed or wounded in the past 80 days.
"We're very clear," Obama said, "that Russia has been
willing to support a murderous regime and an individual, in Assad, who has
destroyed his country just to cling on to power."
The president said any cessation of hostilities in Syria must include an
end to aerial bombings and other methods used to kill civilians that have been
carried out by the Syrian regime.
For nearly two years, the U.S. has been supporting local forces in Syria
and neighboring Iraq as they work to push Islamic State terrorists out of their
countries. The U.S. started launching strikes against IS in Afghanistan in
January and began supporting local forces aligned with the government in Libya
earlier this week as they fight to push IS out of its stronghold, Sirte.
"The finish line is in sight," Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis
told reporters this week, "and we are helping [the Libyan Government of
National Accord] get there."
Libya air operation
A Pentagon official said the air operation in Libya, dubbed Operation
Odyssey Lightning, probably will last weeks, rather than months. The forces
aligned with the U.N.-backed GNA have spent several months whittling down IS
territory along the coastline of the Gulf of Sidra from Tripoli to near
Benghazi. Davis said thanks to GNA-aligned fighters, IS control in Libya has
essentially collapsed to the city center of Sirte.
The Pentagon estimates that IS fighter numbers have been reduced from
thousands in the city to fewer than 1,000. After Libyan strongman Moammar
Gadhafi was ousted in 2011, IS extremists targeted Libya as a safe haven
outside its initial strongholds in Iraq and Syria.
::::::::::
Donate Now With Web Site Senderos de Apure.
.jpg)
