According to the US President’s adviser, if ceasefire in Syria is not installed now, there will be fewer opportunities to do this in future.
Ben Rhodes (Photo: AP)
It is becoming more difficult to install a full ceasefire in Syria, and if this is not done now, there will be fewer opportunities to do this in future, the main foreign policy adviser to US President Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, said. Some experts have seen an implicit threat to Russia in his words.
“Our message to Russia should be – a ‘window of opportunity’ is closing. We should see whether they [Russians] are able reach a real agreement [ceasefire] and support it,” he told journalists on August 29.
Rhodes also noted that the US and Russia have made progress, although have not “reached an agreement,” and now Washington expects Moscow’s “support and actions through its own armed forces and impact on the Assad regime”.
According to the US President’s adviser, an ultimate goal of this cooperation is a “true cessation of hostilities and a mechanism for humanitarian access to affected areas, particularly to Aleppo.”
Rhodes believes that if such agreements were reached, the US-Russian cooperation in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) and the Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist groups in Syria would be feasible.
Will remind, after talks with his US counterpart John Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia and the US find “more and more points of contact” on the Syrian situation. According to him, the both sides have made several important steps to resolve the conflict in Syria.
