|
BEIJING, Sept. 17 (Xinhuanet) -- Moscow has come under increased pressure from the United States in recent days to explain its recent military buildup in Syria. Russia has had a naval base in the Syrian port city of Tartus since the 1970s.
US officials said on Monday that seven Russian T-90 tanks had been observed at an airfield near the city of Latakia in Syria. The US says their presence is evidence of Russia continuing its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Three conversations since September the 5th.
US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov have kept in close contact recently amid claims of Russia's military buildup in war-torn Syria.
During the latest phone call between the pair, Russia's Foreign Ministry said Lavrov stressed the need to create a united front to battle terrorist groups in Syria.
As for Kerry's response, the US State Department said he made clear that Russia's support for Assad risked exacerbating and extending the conflict, and undermining the goal of fighting extremism.
The White House also said Russia's engagement could be more constructive.
"As we've said before we continue to believe that their efforts to support Assad, and continue to offer him support, are destabilizing and counterproductive," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
The US insists that there is no role for Assad to play in the US-led military coalition against Islamic State militants.
But this view is at odds with the way Russia sees the situation.
"It's clear that without an active participation of the Syrian authorities and the military, it would be impossible to expel the terrorists from that country and the region as a whole, and to protect the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional Syrian people from destruction," Putin said.
US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have not yet spoken about the issue.
But the Whitehouse spokesman DID say Obama would attempt to do so...but only when he is determined that it would advance the interests of the US.
And the Kremlin said President Putin is always open to dialogue with Obama, and could discuss the situation when he visits the UN headquarters later this month.
But so far, the Russian presidential office said no such meeting had yet been agreed.
(Source: CNTV.cn)
