U.S., allies urge Russia to halt its Syria strikes
By Tom Perry and Lidia Kelly /Reuters/Beirut/Moscow
Friday, 2 October 2015
Russia bombed Syria for a third day on Friday, mainly hitting areas held by rival insurgent groups rather than the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters it said it was targeting and drawing an increasingly angry response from the West. The U.S.-led coalition that is waging its own air war against ISIS called on the Russians to halt strikes on targets other than ISIS. “We call on the Russian Federation to immediately cease its attacks on the Syrian opposition and civilians and to focus its efforts on fighting ISIL,” said the coalition, which includes the United States, major European powers, Arab states and Turkey. “We express our deep concern with regard to the Russian military build-up in Syria and especially the attacks by the Russian Air Force on Hama, Homs and Idlib since yesterday which led to civilian casualties and did not target Daesh,” it said. ISIL and Daesh are both acronyms for ISIS, which has set up a caliphate across a swathe of eastern Syria and northern Iraq. In Syria, the group is one of many fighting against Russia’s ally, President Bashar al-Assad. Washington and its Western and regional allies say Russia is using it as a pretext to bomb other groups that oppose Assad. Some of these groups have received training and weapons from Assad’s foreign enemies, including the United States.President Vladimir Putin held frosty talks with France’s Francois Hollande in Paris, Putin’s first meeting with a Western leader since launching the strikes two days after he gave an address to the United Nations making the case to back Assad.
Prayers cancelled
Friday prayers were cancelled in insurgent-held areas of Homs province that were hit by Russian warplanes this week, with residents concerned that mosques could be targeted, said one person from the area. “The streets are almost completely empty and there is an unannounced curfew,” said the resident, speaking from the town of Rastan which was hit in the first day of Russian air strikes. Warplanes were seen flying high above the area, which is held by anti-Assad rebels but has no significant presence of ISIS fighters. ISIS also cancelled prayers in areas it controls, according to activists from its de facto capital Raqqa. A Russian air strike on Thursday destroyed a mosque in the town of Jisr al-Shughour, captured from government forces by an alliance of Islamist insurgents earlier this year, activists said. Moscow said on Friday its latest strikes had hit 12 ISIS targets, but most of the areas it described were in western and northern parts of the country, while ISIS is mostly present in the east. The Russian Defense Ministry said its Sukhoi-34, Sukhoi-24M and Sukhoi-25 warplanes had flown 18 sorties hitting targets that included a command post and a communications center in the province of Aleppo, a militant field camp in Idlib and a command post in Hama. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict with a network of sources on the ground, said there was no ISIS presence at any of those areas. Russia has however also struck ISIS areas in a small number of other attacks further east. The Observatory said 12 ISIS fighters were killed near Raqqa on Thursday, and planes believed to be Russian had also struck the ISIS-held city of Qarytayn. Russia has said it is using its most advanced plane, the Sukhoi-34, near Raqqa, the area where it is most likely to encounter U.S. and coalition aircraft targeting ISIS.
Frosty handshakes
As Hollande hosted Putin in Paris, both men looked stern and frosty-faced in the yard of the Elysee palace, exchanging terse handshakes for the cameras. An aide to Hollande said they “tried to narrow differences” over Syria during talks that lasted more than an hour. Hollande laid out France’s conditions for supporting Russian intervention, which include a halt to strikes on groups other than ISIS and al-Qaeda, protections for civilians and a commitment to a political transition that would remove Assad. Putin’s decision to launch strikes on Syria marks a dramatic escalation of foreign involvement in a 4-year-old civil war in which every major country in the region has a stake. Lebanese sources have told Reuters that hundreds of Iranian troops have also arrived in recent days in Syria to participate in a major ground offensive alongside government troops and their Lebanese and Iraqi Shi’ite militia allies.
Common enemy, different friends
Western countries and Russia say they have a common enemy in ISIS. But they also have very different friends and opposing views of how to resolve a war that has killed at least 250,000 people and driven more than 10 million from their homes. Washington and its allies oppose both ISIS and Assad, blaming him for attacks on civilians that have radicalized the opposition and insisting that he has no place in a post-war settlement. Russia says Assad’s government should be the centerpiece of international efforts to fight militants. The campaign is the first time Moscow has sent forces into combat beyond the frontiers of the former Soviet Union since the disastrous Afghanistan campaign of the 1980s, a bold move by Putin to extend Russia’s influence beyond its neighborhoods. It comes at a low point in Russia’s relations with the West, a year after the United States and EU imposed financial sanctions on Moscow for annexing territory from Ukraine. Assad and his father before him were Moscow’s close allies in the Middle East since the Cold War, and Russia maintains its only Mediterranean naval base on the Syrian coast. Moscow’s intervention comes at a time when insurgents had been scoring major battlefield gains against government forces after years of stalemate in the war. Putin appears to be betting that by defending Assad he can increase Russia’s influence in any post-war settlement, safeguard the naval base and counter the influence of regional rivals like NATO member Turkey. He may also intend to reinforce his image at home as a strong leader willing to challenge global rivals, first and foremost the United States.
Normal ties between Iran and US unlikely despite nuclear deal
By REUTERS/J.Post/10/02/2015
UNITED NATIONS- Iran is unlikely to normalize relations with the United States despite a landmark nuclear deal reached with America and other major powers and the first handshake between a US president and a high-ranking Iranian official in more than 30 years. Pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani, whose 2013 election paved the way for Iran’s diplomatic thaw with the West, has signaled his willingness to improve ties with “the Great Satan” and to discuss the regional crisis with the United States. But analysts and officials say this improvement will go no further than an exchange of intelligence between the two nations through back-channels and that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has no intention of restoring diplomatic ties. In a dramatic shift in tone between Iran and the United States, President Barack Obama and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif shook hands at the United Nations on Monday. An Iranian official said it “was not preplanned.” But Iran’s most powerful authority who has the last say on all state matters, including relations with Washington, is Khamenei and not Rouhani. Khamenei has continued to denounce the United States publicly, suggesting that antagonism prevailing between Iran and the United States since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Tehran will not abate because of the nuclear deal. Iran and the United States severed diplomatic ties shortly after the revolution.
“How can you trust your long-time enemy? How can you do business with a partner you don’t trust? We trust American people but not their government. And the deal has not changed it,” said a senior, hard-line security official in Tehran. “Real believers in Iran’s revolution and its pillars and followers of our late leader (Ayatollah Ruhollah) Khomeini will never accept it.” Khamenei has backed Rouhani’s efforts to reach the deal, under which Iran will curb its nuclear work in return for the lifting of sanctions which have severely damaged the economy. “But he will never accept normalization of ties with America,” a senior Iranian diplomat, who declined to be named, said. “For the leader it is just a non-negotiable red line.” Khamenei’s hard-line loyalists, drawn from among Islamists and Revolutionary Guards, fear that normalization of ties with the United States might weaken their position.”Restoring ties with the United States, which Rouhani and his camp are in favor of, poses an existential threat to hard-liners. If it happens, Rouhani’s power and popularity will surpass Khamenei’s,” said political analyst Hamid Farahvashian.
PRESERVING BALANCE
But Khamenei, since taking over in 1989 from Khomeini, has been adept at ensuring that no group, even hard-liners, gain enough momentum to challenge the power of the Islamic Republic’s second supreme leader. “The leader strongly believes in America’s devilish intentions. He will never approve normalization of ties with America,” said a Khamenei relative, who asked not to be named. Easing economic sanctions and ending Iran’s isolation will bolster Rouhani’s position within Iran’s complex power structure, analysts said. Iranians could reward pro-Rouhani candidates at the ballot box in February elections for parliament and for the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body with nominal power over the supreme leader, analysts say. A senior US official said that Khamenei was “very savvy” about holding on to the power that he has. “Iran has politics … I think he lets those politics play out. The revolution is still very present in that country and the tenets of that revolution,” US lead nuclear negotiator and under-secretary of state, Wendy Sherman, said. Some analysts argued that Rouhani was not seeking normalization of ties. “At best, it amounts to détente,” said senior Iran analyst Ali Vaez from International Crisis Group. “For Ayatollah Khamenei the nuclear accord was purely transactional, not transformational … Neither President Rouhani nor any other actor in the Islamic Republic will be able to successfully challenge this vision.”
EXCHANGE OF INTELLIGENCE
However, Iran and the United States will continue to cooperate through back-channels on regional issues aimed at reducing conflict in the Middle East, officials and analysts say. “We cannot expect embassies to be reopened in Tehran and Washington … but we will continue to share information about Iraq, Syria and other regional common interests. We have done it in the past,” said an Iranian official, who asked not to be named. Tehran and Washington have common interests and threats across the Middle East and they have cooperated tactically in the past, including when Iran helped the United States to counter al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Islamic State in Iraq. Ali Ansari, director of the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of St. Andrews, said, “There will be more informal exploration of collaboration on a case-by-case basis before normalizing relations is given serious consideration.” Iran continues to support Islamist militant groups such as Hezbollah, a close ally — like Iran — of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his war with rebels trying to overthrow him. “One of those issues where we disagree very strongly with Iran where it may make sense to have some kind of discussions is Syria,” Sherman said, adding that issues in Syria were “staggeringly complex, difficult and can’t be reduced to a simple answer.” Sherman doubted that relations will improve any time soon. The Iranian official agreed. “Normalization of ties seems impossible at least in the near future. But who knows what will happen in 10 years,” he said.
