This
is only STARTING to come out through Russian media, Zero Hedge etc.
After day-after-day of constant propaganda over Aleppo there is a big
fat ZERO from the Guardian. Instead, they’re obscessing with Donald
Trump.
US
suspends bilateral contact with Russia over Syria
RT,
3
October, 2016
Washington
has “suspended” bilateral contacts with Moscow over the Syrian
crisis, the US State Department said. Russian Foreign Ministry said
it was "disappointed" by the decision and accused the US of
seeking to shift blame for its own failure in Syria.
US
officials had threatened
for a week to
withdraw from the Syrian peace process, after the latest ceasefire
negotiated by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Secretary of State
John Kerry collapsed amid bloody fighting.
While
contacts between US and Russian military to “deconflict”
encounters between their aircraft in Syrian skies will continue, the
US is withdrawing personnel that was dispatched for the purpose of
setting up the Joint Implementation Center (JIC) for the ceasefire,
agencies reported citing the State Department.
There
is "nothing more for the US and Russia to talk about" in
Syria, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Monday.
Russia
has made efforts to preserve the September 9 ceasefire agreement,
while repeatedly urging Washington to live up to its obligations, the
Foreign Ministry in Moscow said on Monday.
“It
turns out that Washington has failed to fulfill the key condition of
the agreement to ease humanitarian situation for the residents of
Aleppo” said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. “And
now, apparently, having failed to honor these agreements that they
themselves worked out, [the US] is trying to shift the blame.”
The
JIC would have been located in Geneva, Switzerland, with the purpose
to coordinate military cooperation and intelligence-sharing between
Russia and the US-led coalition fighting Islamic State (IS, formerly
ISIS/ISIL) in Iraq and Syria.
Washington
has dragged its feet on setting up the JIC, however, with State
Department spokesman John Kirby telling reporters on September 16
that its establishment was contingent on humanitarian aid reaching
Aleppo, while the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General
Joseph Dunford, told lawmakers the US had “no intention of having
an intelligence-sharing agreement with the Russians.”
On
Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended Moscow’s
participation in a program for disposing of plutonium from
decommissioned nuclear warheads, citing “the radical change in the
environment, a threat to strategic stability posed by the hostile
actions of the US against Russia, and the inability of the US to
deliver on the obligation to dispose of excessive weapons plutonium
under international treaties.”
The
White House called the decision “disappointing.”
“This
is not a decision we took lightly,” State Department spokeswoman
Elizabeth Trudeau told reporters Monday afternoon, claiming that
Russia had not lived up to its obligations under the ceasefire
agreement.
Asked
if the US fulfilled its own obligation to separate the so-called
moderate opposition from terrorists, Trudeau replied, “We believe
we did.”
“We
had detailed negotiations with the opposition, emphasizing the
importance of ‘demarbleizing’ [sic] from Al-Nusra,” Trudeau
said, clarifying Washington’s official stance that “Nusra is
Al-Qaeda, they are a terrorist organization.”
RT’s
Gayane Chichakyan reminded Trudeau that several major rebel groups
refused outright to abide by the ceasefire.
“We
expected good faith efforts, not only from rebel groups on the
ground… but also Russia,” Trudeau replied. “If attacked,
opposition groups have the right to defend themselves.”
This is what alerted me
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