U.S., RUSSIA TRADE BARBS OVER FAILED SYRIAN CEASEFIRE
The United States and Russia abandoned diplomatic niceties Wednesday in a fractious public debate over Syria, blaming each other for spoiling the country’s ceasefire and offering only temporary patches to stem the bloodshed.
Secretary of State John Kerry called for all warplanes to halt flights over aid routes, while Russia’s chief diplomat spoke of a possible three-day pause in fighting.
Meanwhile, The New York Times reported that the Obama administration is considering arming Syrian Kurdish rebels fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant — a major policy shift that would be certain to antagonize Turkey.
It was also reported that ISIL fired a small rocket possibly containing a chemical weapon at a military base in northern Iraq where hundreds of U.S. troops are working. A U.S. military official said the rocket fired at Qayara West airbase may have contained mustard gas. No one was hurt. On Wednesday, at a UN Security Council session originally envisioned to enshrine Syria’s Sept. 9 truce, world powers rued the possibility of a darker phase in the conflict amid increased attacks on humanitarian workers.
The council’s nations all sought to revive the U.S. Russian ceasefire deal, but once again illustrated why they’ve been unable for more than five years to stop Syria’s civil war.
“Supposedly we all want the same goal. I’ve heard that again and again,” a visibly angry Kerry told the council. “Everybody sits there and says we want a united Syria, secular, respecting the rights of all people, in which the people of Syria can choose their leadership. But we are proving woefully inadequate in our ability to be able to get to the table and have that conversation and make it happen.”
While the U.S. and Russia have previously butted heads over several proposed resolutions critical of the Syrian government, Wednesday’s agenda didn’t even include a suggested course of action.
Instead, the two-hour discussion served as a warm-up act for a Thursday meeting blocks away in New York that will include Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and their counterparts from more than a dozen European and Arab countries.
Kerry blamed Russia, lambasting what he portrayed as a cynical response to an airstrike on a humanitarian aid convoy this week that killed 20 civilians. The U.S. believes with very high degree of confidence that a Russian-piloted aircraft carried out the strike, said a senior American official, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
Russia has denied U.S. claims that it was responsible, but Kerry focused on its shifting explanation of what might have happened.
First, Kerry said, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary described the attack as a “necessary response” to an alleged offensive by al-Qaida-linked militants elsewhere in the country. Then, a Russian ambassador said forces were targeting another area.
Russia’s Defence Ministry followed by saying the aid convoy was accompanied by militants in a pickup truck with a mortar, Kerry said, adding that no such evidence exists. Then, the ministry denied any Russian or Syrian involvement as its spokesman suggested, in Kerry’s words, that “the food and the medicine just spontaneously combusted.”
“This is not a joke,” Kerry exclaimed, urging all to stop the “word games that duck responsibility or avoid the choices ... with respect to war and peace, life and death.”
His pleas crossed paths with another statement by Russia’s government, this time suggesting a U.S. coalition Predator drone was operating nearby when the convoy attack occurred. The Pentagon said no drone was in the area at the time.
It was one of Kerry’s most bitter exchanges with Moscow as secretary of state, laced with invective and outrage.
But he also offered one concrete suggestion: to ground all aircraft in key areas, focused on protecting aid routes in northern Syria. It was unclear if Russia and Syria would agree.
Kerry’s words came immediately after Lavrov’s own barbs, underscoring a breakdown in trust.
Lavrov said the U.S. bore the biggest responsibility for peace by separating opposition forces from terrorists. He called for the UN to expand its terrorism list to include groups at the fringes of a U.S.-backed rebel umbrella group.