Syrian ambassador laughs as journalist asks about Aleppo hospital bombings
The Obama administration has repeatedly said it is Russias responsibility to stop its own attacks and to ensure that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria complies with the agreement Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lavrov reached nearly three weeks ago in Geneva to reduce violence in the conflict and allow humanitarian aid into besieged areas.
The two clashed over the conflict in the United Nations Security Council last week, when Mr. Lavrov said the United States had failed to persuade moderate Syrian opposition groups to separate themselves from the extremist fighters of the Nusra Front, an offshoot of Al Qaeda that now calls itself the Levant Victory Front, and abide by a cease-fire.
Mr. Kerry said the Russian and Syrian militaries were primarily responsible for the continuing violence, including the Sept. 19 bombing of an aid convoy to Aleppo, which American officials say was carried out by Russian aircraft despite Russian denials.
Mr. Kirby dismissed the Russian assertion that the Aleppo operation has been aimed at terrorists. Thats not whats happening, he told reporters. What were seeing them hit is not Nusra.
When Mr. Kerry became secretary of state he often asserted his goal for Syria was to change President Assads calculation about prevailing on the battlefield and thus set the stage for a political settlement.
The United States has undertaken a covert program to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels forces bombed by the Russians soon after they deployed their warplanes to Syria a year ago.
But President Obama has been extremely reluctant to take additional steps, such as allowing Arab partners to provide surface-to-air missiles to the opposition, establishing no-fly zones or threatening the Assad government with punitive military action.
Nor is it clear if the administration would be willing to broaden the economic sanctions imposed on Russia in the aftermath of Moscows intervention in Ukraine two years ago.
GraphicCivilians in these areas have limited or no access to food, medicine and basic necessities.
Interagency conversations about other options and alternatives that might be available to us and to our partners continue, said Mr. Kirby, who declined to provide specifics.
Asked what consequences the Russians faced if diplomacy ended, Mr. Kirby pointed to the war itself. Extremist groups will continue to exploit the vacuums that are there in Syria, to expand their operations, which will include no question attacks against Russian interests, perhaps even Russian cities, he said. And Russia will continue to send troops home in body bags.
Congressional critics mocked Mr. Kerrys threat to end talks as toothless. No more lakeside tte--ttes at five-star hotels in Geneva, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham said in a statement. We can only imagine that having heard the news, Vladimir Putin has called off his bear hunt and is rushing back to the Kremlin to call off Russian airstrikes on hospitals, schools and humanitarian aid convoys around Aleppo.
A statement from Russias Foreign Ministry did not mention Mr. Kerrys threat to Mr. Lavrov, saying the two diplomats had discussed possibilities of influencing the situation in Aleppo in the interest of normalizing it by returning to their Sept. 9 agreement.
At a hastily called Defense Ministry briefing Wednesday night in Moscow, Lt. Gen. Viktor Poznikhir said the actions by Syrian and Russian forces in Aleppo were a response to militant shelling and other provocations, including what he called plans for a chemical weapons attack.
He offered no details but said, Under these conditions, the Syrian command had to take retaliatory measures against militants.
When the cease-fire agreement was announced, the Obama administration hoped that the possibility of joint action against militant jihadists would be enough of a lure to ensure Kremlin cooperation.
For months, Russia had pressed the United States to collaborate in Syria against the Islamic State and Nusra Front, not merely deconflict air operations as the American and Russian militaries do now.
For the Kremlin, Russian-American military collaboration in Syria could be presented as having validated its decision to intervene militarily in the conflict and, more generally, its aspirations to expand Russian influence in the Middle East.
But the Russian priority at this point appears to be to help the Syrian government retake Aleppo.
Even if the talks are broken off, the American military will continue to deconflict its air operations with the Russian military, the State Department said.
The attacks on Aleppos medical facilities dominated a meeting on Wednesday of the United Nations Security Council, where diplomacy aimed at halting the war has been repeatedly frustrated. A Security Council resolution adopted in May beseeching combatants to protect medical facilities in war zones has been ignored.
Joanne Liu, the international president of the medical aid group Doctors Without Borders, told the Council that threats to health care workers had worsened, warning that throwing medical impartiality to the wind may also become a new norm of warfare.
The Syrian ambassador, Bashar al-Jaafari, asked by a journalist whether his government had carried out the airstrikes on the two Aleppo hospitals, laughed.
Inside the Council chamber, Russias deputy ambassador, Evgeny Zagaynov, said he condemned attacks on medical targets but warned against a rush to blame Syria and Russia without verifiable data.
The British deputy ambassador, Peter Wilson, pointed out that only Russian and Syrian warplanes were bombing rebel-held eastern Aleppo. Syria and Russia bear full responsibility for these atrocities, he wrote on Twitter.
The secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, in some of his sharpest remarks on Syria, said about the Aleppo airstrikes: Those using ever more destructive weapons know exactly what they are doing. They know they are committing war crimes.
Continue reading the main storySource: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/29/world/middleeast/syria-john-kerry-aleppo-russia.html
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