Putin: Russia, Turkey call for urgent end to bloodshed in Syria

By Jim W. Dean, Managing Editor on October 13, 2016

The US never saw this coming, another major foreign policy disaster

… by  Russia Today, Moscow

The jihadis have taken heavy casualties from airstrikes

[ Editor’s Note: The big news here is Putin’s claim that Russia and Turkey are going to work closely together on the military and Intel aspects of the Syria war, with the initial focus being getting the militants out of Aleppo. This came as a somewhat of a surprise.

 –

Is Erdogan at the point where now that he has his defacto buffer zone in the Kurdish area that was his main concern, and Damascus making several transfers of surrendered jihadis and their arms to Ibid, that that area is also being ceded as outside Damascus control, to be dealt with eventually with the political settlement?

 –

Does he want to cool down the Aleppo situation as Assad’s part of the deal, so the Turks can focus on IS and widen Turkey’s buffer zone, the sooner the better for Turkey and the US who seems to have laid claim to the NE Kurdish region?

 –

And now that Putin has his signed pipeline deal with Turkey, will that kill Qatar’s goal of supplying that gas to Southern Europe? Iran, Qatar and Saudi Arabia will be at the Switzerland meeting on Saturday with Lavrov and Kerry. Such meetings usually are not held unless preliminary agreements have been reached.

 –

And lastly, we have reports from Aleppo of negotiations with some of the jihadi groups to exit the city, and others about the US and Saudis shifting IS from Mosul to redeploy back to Syria with some going to Yemen. So we have a thickening plot here for sure. This weekend will reveal more cards being played as to who is going to get over on whom… Jim W. Dean ]

 ____________

This Syrian soldier took shrapnel in the chest

– First published … October 10, 2016 –

 –

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan have urged a swift end to the bloodshed in war-torn Syria, following talks between the two leaders in Istanbul on Monday.

 –

“Both Russia and Turkey stand for the earliest cessation of bloodshed in Syria. In Russia we think that the switch to a political settlement must happen as soon as possible. We suppose that everybody, who wants peace, should support this proposal,” Putin said.

– 

According to Putin, both Moscow and Ankara backed the proposal of UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, regarding the removal of militants from Aleppo.

“Together with the Turkish president we agreed to do everything to support de Mistura’s initiative on the withdrawal of military units, which refuse to lay down their arms, from Aleppo in order to end violence,” he said.

The Russian president said that he and Erdogan had agreed to strengthen contact between the countries’ militaries and intelligence agencies.
He added that Moscow is ready to develop large-scale military-technical cooperation with Ankara and the sides are now studying various projects.

The Turkish military operation in Syria and ways to cooperate in providing aid to civilians in the city of Aleppo were discussed during the talks in Istanbul on Monday, Erdogan said.
The Russian and Turkish militaries, as well as intelligence services and diplomats from the two countries, will continue to work together on the provision of humanitarian aid in Syria, he added.

“We thoroughly discussed the Syrian issue. We talked about the [Turkish] Euphrates Shield operation and evaluated ways we can cooperate in this direction. We specifically talked about what strategy we may choose in order to help, from a humanitarian point of view, the inhabitants who are in a dire situation, especially in Aleppo,” Erdogan said.

“We have a common stance [with Turkey] regarding what must be done to deliver humanitarian aid to Aleppo. The issue is ensuring security for the deliveries of this cargo,” Putin said.

During the talks, the two leaders agreed to “speed up the work” on construction of such vital joint projects as the Turkish Stream gas pipeline and the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, the Turkish president said.
Before the two leaders addressed the media, an intergovernmental agreement on the Turkish Stream pipeline was signed in their presence.
Regarding the signing of the Turkish Stream pipeline deal, Putin said that Moscow and Ankara are moving forward with plans to create a major energy hub in Turkey.