Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that “the main part” of Russian armed forces in Syria would start to withdraw and told his diplomats to step up the push for peace as U.N.-mediated talks resumed on ending the five-year-old war.
Western diplomats speculated that Putin may be trying to press Assad into accepting a political settlement to the war. President Bashar al-Assad had agreed on the “reduction” of Russian forces.
Russia’s military intervention in Syria in September helped to turn the tide of war in Assad’s favour after months of gains in western Syria by rebel fighters. Russian forces had largely fulfilled their objectives in Syria, Putin said. He gave no deadline for the completion of the withdrawal and said forces would remain at a seaport and airbase in Syria’s Latakia province.
Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama spoke over the phone on Monday about Syria, with the Kremlin saying the two leaders “called for an intensification of the process for a political settlement” to the conflict.
Putin said at the Kremlin meeting that he is ordering the withdrawal from Tuesday, of “the main part of our military contingent” from the country. “The effective work of our military created the conditions for the start of the peace process,” he said. “I believe that the task put before the defence ministry and Russian armed forces has, on the whole, been fulfilled. With the participation of the Russian military, the Syrian armed forces and patriotic Syrian forces have been able to achieve a fundamental turnaround in the fight against international terrorism and have taken the initiative in almost all respects," Putin said.
"I am therefore ordering the defense minister, from tomorrow, to start the withdrawal of the main part of our military contingent from the Syrian Arab Republic."
“The whole subject happened in complete coordination between the Russian and Syrian sides, and is a step that was carefully and accurately studied for some time,” the Syrian presidency said in a statement, adding that Moscow had promised to continue support for Syria in “confronting terrorism.”
“I don’t understand the Russian announcement, it’s a surprise, like the way they entered the war. God protect us,” said Fadi Ahmad, spokesman for the First Coastal Division, a Free Syria Army group fighting in the northwest.
“Nobody knows what is in Putin’s mind, but the point is he has no right to be in be our country in the first place. Just go,” Opposition spokesman Salim al-Muslat said.
"If this step, this action will remove all Russian troops from Syria then it will be a positive step, I believe," he said, adding that Putin should follow up on that "by saying he is standing beside the Syrian people, not beside the Syrian dictatorship."
A European diplomat said that, “It has the potential to put a lot of pressure on Assad and the timing fits that.” “However, I say potentially because we’ve seen before with Russia that what’s promised isn’t always what happens.”
By Premji
