AFTER a tortuous series of talks in Geneva the Russian Foreign minister Lavrov has announced the signing of five documents which include agreements reached by the US and Russia that would lead to the ‘resumption of the political process in Syria’.
Lavrov indicated that the Russian-US deal focuses on the necessity of separating terrorists from the ‘Syrian opposition’, adding that the agreements include designating the areas where the armed terrorists will be targeted only by the Russian and the US air forces without the participation of the Syrian air force.
This ‘separation’ is a very difficult if not an impossible task since IS and the Nusra Front forces operate inside Aleppo without hindrance from the US and UK. A very leading member of IS, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, said to be in charge of sending terrorists into Europe, was very recently killed in Aleppo by the Syrian armed forces.
Al Adnani urged Muslims to ‘kill a disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French,’ adding: ‘Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him.’ In Aleppo where the US-UK ‘moderate opposition’ ends and the US-UK supported ‘Islamic terrorists begin’ is clearly not visible to the naked eye.
Lavrov added that the first step in the deal is holding a 48-hour truce then extending it for 48 more hours, and later the truce will be extended for seven consecutive days and after that a joint Russian-US coordination centre will be established to coordinate air attacks against agreed terrorist targets in Syria.
‘Once it is established after seven continuous days of adherence to the cessation of hostilities and increased humanitarian access, then US and Russian experts will work together to defeat Daesh and Nusra,’ Kerry added.
The signing of this agreement, whether the cease-fire lasts or not, means that the US-UK axis has lost the war, which along with the Saudi and Turkish regimes, they began directly after the murder of Colonel Gadaffi in Libya. Now if the cease fire holds they want to steal any peace that emerges by persuading Putin and the Stalinist bureaucracy to agree to the very early retirement of President Assad in return for concessions elsewhere, where Russia is seeking concessions.
Such a deal is not out of the question, despite the seriousness of the defeat that the US-UK has suffered. Indeed because of this the Stalinist bureaucracy could expect some major concessions. Who would have thought that just a few months after the killing of Russian airmen, that Russia would be tipping off Erdogan about the coup attempt and allowing Turkey to invade northern Syria. Before the coup attempt such an invasion would have meant war. Now in the new reality the Turkish government gave Russia advance warning.
In that intervention Turkey attacked US-backed Kurdish forces, who enjoyed the support of US special forces and the US air force, meaning that Turkey had given up on a US-UK solution – however the invasion was condemned by Syria, and there is no indication of when and where it will terminate.
Workers in the West and in Russia must give their full and active support to the Syrian people and their right to decide themselves who is to govern them. Certainly it cannot be the US-UK, or even Russia that makes that decision. Workers must applaud the action of the Bishop of Rochester who led a delegation to Syria last week and met President Assad to give their support to his government for their defence of all Syrian minorities including Christians. These clerics have been accused of treason by the Tory press.
The reverend Andrew Ashdon hit back saying: ‘I think it’s obscene, actually, that our government allies with brutal dictatorships, where human-rights abuses have been far greater even than those that might have happened in Syria . . . yet refuses to talk to a country where faiths have lived freely together, where women have had the best rights of almost anywhere in the region.’
The TUC Congress meets this week in Brighton. It must pass an emergency resolution supporting the right of the Syrian people to decide who is to govern them, call for the recall of all British forces from the Middle East, and decide to send a TUC delegation to Damascus.