TRUMP, PUTIN TALK SYRIA
ALSO DISCUSS N KOREA OVER PHONE
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin agreed on Tuesday to work together to end the violence in Syria and combat rising terrorism in West Asia. This was the first phone conversation between the two leaders since the US bombed a Syrian airfield in response to a chemical attack, purportedly carried out by the Bashar al-Assad government.
The White House described the conversation as “a very good one”, while the Kremlin in Moscow called it “businesslike and constructive”.
The two leaders agreed, the White House said, “the suffering in Syria has gone on for far too long and that all parties must do all they can to end the violence.”
They discussed the creation of “safe, or de-escalation zones to achieve lasting peace for humanitarian and other reasons”.
Later on Wednesday, Putin said Russia, the US, Turkey, Iran and Syria were close to agreeing the establishment of “safe zones” which would amount to “no-fly zones”, according to media reports. He said Trump had told him in the call that he supported the idea.
After the call, the US also said it will send representatives to cease-fire talks in Astana, Kazakhstan.
The Kremlin said the “emphasis” of the conversation was on “future coordination of Russian and US actions to fight international terrorism in the context of the Syrian crisis”.
The two leaders went beyond Syria and “discussed at length working together to eradicate terrorism throughout” West Asia, the White House said.
US secretary of state Rex Tillerson later said the conversation, which lasted 30 minutes, “was a very constructive call that the two presidents had.”
An unidentified US official told The Wall Street Journal there was no breakthrough in the conversation and that the Trump administration was not sure if Moscow —Assad’s most powerful backer — was serious about resolving the crisis.
The phone conversation, which came in the aftermath of Trump describing relations between the two countries being at an “all-time low”, was seen as an attempt to resume cooperation, which Trump has repeatedly said he was keen to.