HAMBURG, Germany (AP) — The United
States and Russia struck an agreement Friday on a cease-fire in southwest
Syria, crowning President Donald Trump’s first meeting with Russian President
Vladimir Putin. It is the first U.S.-Russian effort under Trump’s presidency to
stem Syria’s six-year civil war.
The cease-fire goes into effect
Sunday at noon Damascus time, according to U.S. officials and the Jordanian
government, which is also involved in the deal.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who
accompanied Trump in his meeting with Putin, said the understanding is designed
to reduce violence in an area of Syria near Jordan’s border that is critical to
the U.S. ally’s security.
It’s a “very complicated part of the
Syrian battlefield,” Tillerson told reporters after the U.S. and Russian
leaders met for more than 2 hours on the sidelines of a global summit in
Hamburg, Germany.
Of the agreement, he said, “I think
this is our first indication of the U.S. and Russia being able to work together
in Syria.”
For years, the former Cold War foes
have been backing opposing sides in Syria’s war. Moscow has staunchly backed
Syrian President Bashar Assad, supporting Syrian forces militarily since 2015.
Washington has backed rebels fighting Assad. Both the U.S. and Russia oppose
Islamic State militants and say they’re focused on rooting out the extremist
group.
The potential pitfalls for the
cease-fire are clear — not least the challenge of enforcing it.
Russia Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
said Russian military police would monitor the new truce. But Tillerson said
that was still being worked out. A senior U.S. State Department official said
the two countries were close to a deal on that issue and hoped to finalize it
in the coming days, raising the prospect it could take effect Sunday with no
clear sense of who is policing it.
That the deal was announced before
all the details were ironed out was a clear indication of how eager the U.S.
and Russia were to cast their leaders’ first meeting as a success. Officials
said the deal had been in the works for weeks or months, but came together in
time for the meeting.
The deal marks a new level of
involvement for the Trump administration in trying to resolve Syria’s civil
war.
Trump ordered some 60 cruise missiles
to be fired at a Syrian air base in April after accusing Assad’s forces of a
deadly chemical weapons attack. But his top military and national security
advisers pointedly said they had no intentions of intervening to oust Assad.
And they stopped short of endorsing Russian-led or U.N. peace mediation efforts
between Assad’s government and rebel groups.
Israel also is part of the agreement,
one U.S. official said, who like others wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on
the matter and demanded anonymity. Like Jordan, Israel shares a border with the
southern part of Syria and has been concerned about a spillover of violence as
well as an amassing of Iranian-aligned forces in the south of the country.
Jordanian government spokesman
Mohammed Momani confirmed the accord in a statement that made no reference to
Israel’s participation. Syrian government forces and its allies will stay on
one side of an agreed demarcation line, and rebel fighters will stick to the
other side. The goal is also to enable aid to reach this area of Syria, Momani
told state media. U.S. officials said the U.S., Russia and Jordan had only
agreed on that demarcation line last week, clearing the way for a cease-fire to
be worked out.
The deal is separate from an
agreement that Russia, Turkey and Iran struck earlier this year to try to
establish “de-escalation zones” in Syria with reduced bloodshed. The U.S., wary
of Iran’s involvement, stayed away from that effort. Follow-up talks this week
in Kazakhstan were unable to produce agreement on finalizing a cease-fire in
those zones.
Previous cease-fires in Syria have
collapsed or failed to reduce violence for long, and it was unclear whether
this deal would be any better.
Tillerson said the difference this
time is Russia’s interest in seeing Syria return to stability. It’s an argument
top U.S. officials such as former Secretary of State John Kerry cited regularly
amid his failed efforts to end a conflict that has killed as many as a
half-million people, contributed to Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World
War II and allowed IS to emerge as a global terror threat.
Tillerson also repeated the U.S.
position that a “long-term role for the Assad family and the Assad regime” is
untenable and voiced his belief that Russia might be willing to address the
future leadership of Syria, in tones reminiscent of Kerry. Up to now, Assad has
rejected any proposals that would see him leave power, contributing to an
impasse that has prolonged Syria’s suffering.
Earlier in the week, Syria’s military
said it was halting combat operations in the south of Syria for four days, in
advance of the new round of Russian-sponsored talks in Kazakhstan. That move
covered the southern provinces of Daraa, Quneitra and Sweida. Syria’s
government briefly extended that unilateral cease-fire, which is now set to
expire Saturday — a day before the U.S. and Russian deal was to take effect.
The U.S.-Russian cease-fire has no
set end date, one U.S. official said, describing it as part of broader
discussions with Moscow on lowering violence in Syria.
The agreement may also reflect Iran’s
increasingly prominent role in Syria.
Washington has been resistant to
letting Iranian forces and their proxy militias gain strength in Syria’s south,
a position shared by Israel and Jordan. Friday’s deal could help the Trump
administration retain more of a say over who fills the power vacuum left behind
as the Islamic State is routed from additional territory in Syria.
In recent weeks, U.S. forces have
shot down a Syrian aircraft that got too close to American forces, as well as
Iranian-made drones. A renewed government offensive against Western-backed
rebels and Islamic militants in the contested province of Daraa also is
sparking tensions, and Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters have shifted south to
join the fight.
Israel has also struck Syrian
military installations on several occasions in the past few weeks after shells
landed in the Israeli-controlled side of the Golan Heights. Ahead of the deal,
media reports in Israel have suggested unease at any arrangement that relies on
Russia policing areas near its frontier.
Implications for Syria aside, the
deal marks the biggest diplomatic achievement for the U.S. and Russia since
Trump took office. Trump’s administration has approached the notoriously
strained relationship by trying to identify a few limited issues on which the
countries could make progress, thereby building trust for a broader repair of
ties.
___
Lederman and Salama reported from
Washington. Associated Press writer Zeina Karam in Beirut, Lebanon, contributed
to this report.
___
On Twitter, reach Josh Lederman
at https://twitter.com/joshledermanAP , Vivian Salama at https://twitter.com/vmsalama and Ken Thomas at https://twitter.com/KThomasDC
No comments:
Post a Comment