The Syrian president "is in agreement with" holding elections for parliament, as well as establishing contacts with the so-called healthy opposition and bringing them into the leadership, Putin told reporters on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on Friday.
"Overall there is an understanding that the unification of forces in the fight against terrorism should proceed in parallel with some sort of political process within Syria," Putin said, according to a Kremlin statement.
"This is primarily an issue of Syria's internal development. We are not imposing anything, but we are ready to promote this internal Syrian dialogue," Putin said.
Putin did not elaborate on what a "healthy" opposition was supposed to mean.
Russia has been a close ally of the Syrian government since the Soviet era and has staunchly opposed foreign calls to oust Assad in the effort to restore peace to the country.
Moscow wants the US-led coalition carrying out air strikes on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group's positions to coordinate with the Syrian and Iraqi armies and moderate anti-Assad rebel groups on the ground, as well as Kurdish forces.
Assad's enemies have refused to cooperate with Damascus, fearing that would help legitimise his rule in Syria, where the west and Gulf states say he is part of the problem, not the solution, and must go.
A flurry of recent high-level diplomatic contacts have so far failed to yield a breakthrough on the key point of contention in the conflict.
"If it's impossible today to organise joint work directly on the battle field between all those countries interested in fighting terrorism, it's indispensable to at least establish some sort of coordination between them," Putin said.
Putin told reporters that Syrian refugees were mainly fleeing ISIL, which has gained large swaths of
Syria and Iraq over the past year.
"People are running away not from the regime of Bashar al-Assad, but from the Islamic State, which has conquered significant territory in Syria and Iraq," Putin said at the forum.
Source: Agencies
aljazeera.com
4/9/15
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Angela Merkel, l'héroïne des réfugiés syriens sur le chemin de l'Europe...
ReplyDeleteEn s'opposant à l'expulsion des migrants syriens, Angela Merkel est devenue une véritable héroïne pour nombre de Syriens. Tant et si bien que ceux-ci sont prêts à croire qu'elle a affrété des navires pour les emmener en Allemagne.
Quand le 25 août dernier, Angela Merkel a officialisé la décision de ne plus renvoyer les Syriens vers leur pays d'entrée dans l'Union européenne, comme le stipule la Convention de Dublin, elle a fait un geste aussi symbolique que conséquent. La chancellière allemande ne savait pas que cette annonce, saluée par la Commission européenne, allait la propulser au rang d'héroïne des migrants syriens.
Sa décision survient au cours d’un été marqué par un afflux sans précédent de migrants, dont la majorité sont des Syriens fuyant la guerre qui sévit dans leur pays depuis plus de quatre ans. Plusieurs drames, comme celui du camion autrichien et ses 71 victimes, ou du petit Aylan Kurdi, dont l'image du corps étendu sur la plage de Bodrum restera gravée dans les mémoires, ont suscité l'émoi de l'opinion publique en Europe et fait naître un vif débat................http://www.france24.com/fr/20150904-angela-merkel-allemagne-heroine-migrants-syriens-europe-ue
4/9/15
Support for Merkel drops over handling of refugee crisis....
DeleteGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel's popularity has dropped abruptly over her handling of Europe's refugee crisis, a poll for ARD television network showed.
Merkel, who was criticized for being slow to condemn violent protests against refugees in an east German town last month, saw her approval ratings slip by 4 points from the previous month to 63 percent in the Infratest Dimap survey.
Although she remains very popular at home, it was an unusually steep one-month drop in a survey that normally moves by just a point or two each month. It was the lowest support rating for Merkel since December 2012.
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a leading Social Democrat (SPD), remained the most popular politician with an approval rating of 72 percent, while support for Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was at 69 percent.
More than half of those surveyed were unhappy with how Merkel had acted in the refugee crisis, which she has described as a bigger challenge for Europe than the Greek debt crisis.................reuters.com
4/9/15