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Spotlight: Moscow-Washington trade-off paves way for anti-terror strikes in Syria: experts

Xinhua, October 1, 2015 Adjust font size:

A compromise reached by leaders of Russia and the United States has paved the way for a more efficient fight against the Islamic State (IS) and other terrorist groups in Syria, Russian experts have said.

Russia's air force on Wednesday started airstrikes in Syria after the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, granted President Vladimir Putin the approval to send armed forces abroad.

Prior to that, Putin met U.S. President Barack Obama on the sidelines of a United Nations General Assembly session in New York. Despite differences, the two sides agreed in their 90-minute talks to continue cooperation in solving the Syrian crisis.

A U.S.-led coalition has been launching airstrikes against positions of terrorists in Syria, which Russia has criticized for inefficiency.

Russia insists that all forces interested in stabilizing the situation in Syria, including Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, should participate in the campaign, while Washington and its allies want him ousted. However, Washington has toned down the demand in recent days.

"There has been a certain compromise, as (U.S. Secretary of State John) Kerry said that the U.S. no longer insists on immediate ousting of Assad, and that a certain political process has started," Yevgeni Minchenko, director of the Moscow-based International Institute of Political Expertise, told Xinhua.

The United States is beginning to realize that its policy toward Syria has reached an impasse as its support for anti-Assad opposition led only to the strengthening of terrorist groups, said Andrei Ivanov, senior research fellow at the Center for East Asia and Shanghai Cooperation Organization Studies at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.

"Therefore, the United States was forced to look for a way out of this impasse," he added.

Russia will take all the necessary steps to defend its interests in the Eastern Mediterranean, so as to guarantee the existence of Syria as a country and not just a space on the map filled with terrorists, said Yevgeny Satanovsky, president of the Institute for Middle East Studies.

However, the experts believed that Russia is unlikely to extend its involvement in the hostilities in Syria further at least in the near future.

"I believe military and technical support, as well as participation in airstrikes and diplomatic backing of the internal political settlement, is more than sufficient for the moment," Minchenko said.

He added that Russia will not want to see huge human losses resulting from participation in land operations.

As to the future cooperation between Russia and other countries concerned, the experts stressed the necessity to establish stable lines of communication in order to prevent clashes between their forces.

"If a rapprochement of Russia and the West on Syria is reached, we will soon witness all parties concerned create certain mechanisms to exchange information and, possibly, coordinate their actions," Ivanov said.

"The coordination will depend on our Western partners," Satanovsky noted. Endi