US playing double game over Syria peace talks: Pundit

Press TV has conducted an interview with Anthony James Hall, a professor of University of Lethbridge from Alberta, to discuss the seizure of the strategic village of Khan Touman in Syria by the al-Nusra Front terrorists despite a ceasefire being brokered by the US and Russia in the region.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: The fact that terrorists or the so-called moderate opposition, if you like, by the Westerners and the Saudi regime have been essentially taking advantage of the murky situation and exploiting it by disguising themselves as being moderate and being rebel rather than being known as terrorist. Now this has indeed rendered the situation in terms of political talks rather problematic and it has been perpetuating destruction and devastation on the ground as well but to what extent you think this new development can change that in terms of the US and Russia being brokers to the truce deal? To what extent do you think that would essentially galvanize a different action of their behalf?

Hall: This demonstrates that the United States is playing a kind of double game carrying on with these peace talks which have now moved to, could I call it, Israeli-occupied Germany and they are putting so-called boots on the ground and the United States is sending in military advisers and obviously this group dubbed moderate or moderate rebels, which in fact are like al-Qaeda who did 9/11 or is blamed for 9/11, al-Nusra, these are all proxy armies backed by the United States and ultimately with Israel giving a lot of the directives.

So this whole mockery, really, of an effort which is ultimately directed at trying to do regime change in Syria in the name of fighting the Islamic State, which is another kind of proxy army, it is coming to pass this action in Khan Touman seems to indicate that there is no intention to respect the peace deal, what is called euphemistically the regime of calm, when it comes to Aleppo, which is the commercial and industrial capital of Syria and is obviously strategically immensely important. So we are seeing US trying to look like it is playing on the peace side in Europe but on the ground building up the force of its proxy armies taking over this Khan Touman and it is becoming increasingly clear that there really isn’t the political will on the US’ side to go along this route of peace and moderation where the rhetoric has been developed as such in Europe.

Press TV: How do you predict the next move by Moscow in terms of, let’s say, furthering its support for the negotiations and the peace talks. We understand that Russia is one of the brokers of these talks and recently we heard senior Russian officials asking Mr. De Mistura, the UN envoy to the talks, to have Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar ash-Sham, who are these so-called moderate rebels and closely linked to Saudi Arabia, by the way, removed from the HNC. To what extent do you think that this would change the Russian’s attitude when it comes to the peace negotiations?

Hall: Russia has played a major role in all of this and of course exposed the kind of lies, the kind of fake war on the Islamic State, on Daesh, by actually fighting really Islamic State, Daesh. Russia of course is allied with Syria but Russia is obviously sort of adjusting its position internationally. It is hard to know. Russia has a very clear and important role in all of this and of course there is a great buildup within the Unites States that wants to fight Russia, that wants to make an enemy of Russia, is making an enemy of Russia, kind of return to the Cold War as if they need more military conflict.

It is not enough for the military industrial complex, for the corporations and the interest always pushing for more and more violence, more and more destabilization in the Middle East, and of course this destabilization in Syria is serving to destabilize parts of Europe especially Germany, which many think is actually an Israeli agenda, the Oded Yinon plan to destabilize the neighbors of Israel seems to be extended into destabilizing Europe with Turkey playing a major role in terms of funneling the migrants from this area which is made impossible for people to live in the parts of Syria and Iraq and creating this huge movement of people into Europe.

It is a very dangerous and cynical game and again the signals point towards Israel in the background pulling many of the strings and giving many of the directives.

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