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Russia warns US not to "play with fire" in the Syrian conflict
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned the US not to meddle in the Syrian conflict, accusing the Trump administration of trying to undermine the Arab Republic's territorial integrity and of supporting the autonomy-seeking Kurds in order to further its own interests.
After years of conflict, the Syrian government has managed to regain control over a large part of the country although, with the help of the US, Kurdish forces had set up their own administrative apparatus, with no connection to the central government, across a broad swathe of the country, with the suspected aim of creating a Kurdish-dominated autonomous region.
"This can be a very serious problem in terms of meeting the requirements of the UN Security Council to ensure the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria [...] I think that the success of the Syrian settlement depends not on what else Russia can do, but on what the United States will not do, it would be better if they stopped playing very dangerous games that lead to the division of the Syrian state," Lavrov stressed during a Middle East conference in Moscow on Monday.
Taking advantage of the ongoing conflict, the Kurds had already proclaimed a semi-autonomous state in the regions stretching across Syria's northern border in 2011.
More recently, the US-led coalition had been training Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (which Ankara considered a terrorist group) to help maintain security along Syria's borders, according to US Colonel Thomas Veale.
Russia also suspected the US-led coalition's aim was not just to fight the terrorists from the al-Nusra Front movement.
"Al-Nusra Front militants do not halt their provocations. In particular, they shelled residential areas of Damascus, including the Russian embassy, the Russian trade mission, from East Ghouta. Nevertheless, our Western partners for some reason prefer to make a fuss about these two areas - Idlib, East Ghouta, without saying what is happening there," said Lavrov.
The Russian defense minister also accused the US of having a 'hidden agenda', claiming that the aim of what he labeled as Washington's "illegal military presence in Syria" was is to control the country's assets - not defeat Daesh.
Lavrov warned the US "not on immediate needs of today's political situation, but rather from the long-term interests of the Syrian people and all the peoples of this region, including the Kurds," adding, "It seems to me that the statements of our American colleagues that the only purpose is to fight ISIL [Daesh] and preserve territorial integrity need to be confirmed by actions.
"We have more and more evidence, which makes it possible to doubt that our Western counterparts in the US-led coalition are ready to fight Jabhat al-Nusra in earnest, despite the fact that it has been added to all resolutions and has been designated as a terrorist organization by the UN Security Council," the minister said.
Acting as a backdrop, in an unexpected move Kurdish militia YPG told Al Jazeera on Monday they were calling on Assad's forces to "preserve a united Syria", which some observers worried might see regime forces come into direct confrontation with Turkish troops and units of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), an Ankara-backed armed Syrian opposition group.