Russia airstrikes tipping balance of power in Syria: Analyst
Press TV has conducted an interview with Gareth Porter, an investigative journalist, from Washington, and a senior analyst at Foreign Policy in Focus, Ian Williams, from New York, to discuss a ceasefire agreement that will come into effect in Syria later this week.
Porter described the ceasefire deal as a "partial truce" which allows Russia to continue its airstrikes against terrorist groups.
“The second aspect of this [truce] is that there is supposed to be a process of identifying the areas in which al-Nusra Front actually is operating or stationing its forces to ensure that the airstrikes carried out from now on by the Russian forces are in fact not going beyond those areas,” he added.
This implicates that any opposition forces found within those areas are fair targets for the Russian airstrikes, Porter emphasized.
He also said that there is no doubt that Saudi Arabia and Turkey would like to do whatever they can to continue their policy of supplying the armed groups in Syria with weapons and money, but Russia's airstrikes have cut off the militants' route of access to Turkey's border and that is a fundamental fact.
Williams, however, asserts that the truce deal has a lot of ambiguities especially when it comes to designating "the terrorist groups."
“Whenever the word terrorist is used, it obscures issues more than it clarifies them,” he reiterated.
He also added that the situation in Syria is getting more complicated with so many “uncontrollable surrogates” involved in the crisis.
The fact that Turkey still reserves the right to attack the Kurds in Syria or the US cannot speak for all NATO members shows how complex the situation is, Williams said.
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