And the pigtail pulling begins .......Obama : "Russia strikes out of weakness in Syria". Putin : "I believe some of our partners simply have mush for brains,"
Obama says the Russian leader is acting out of weakness in Syria. (CBS 60 Minutes' image grab)
Russian
President Vladimir Putin’s military campaign in Syria is an act
of weakness and Moscow is spending resources “it doesn’t have” to keep
his Syrian ally in power, says US President Barack Obama.
“The
fact that they [Russians] had to do this is not an indication of
strength, it's an indication that their strategy did not work,” Obama
told CBS’s 60 Minutes, on Sunday.
He added that Putin is
running his “economy into the ground” in a bid to “prop up” Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad who, he said, was on the brink of an “imminent
collapse.”
“You don't think that Mr. Putin would've preferred
having Mr. Assad be able to solve this problem without him having to
send a bunch of pilots and money that they don't have,” he asked.
“Mr.
Putin now is devoting his own troops, his own military, just to barely
hold together by a thread his sole ally,” Obama further noted.
A
video grab from the footage made available on the Russian Defense
Ministry's official website, shows a Russian airstrike in Syria,
September 30, 2015. (AFP Photo) ‘US failed in Syria’
On
his own strategies in Syria, namely the $500 million “train-and-equip”
program aimed to produce the so-called “moderate” militants, Obama
admitted that Washington had failed to create a proxy force in the Arab
country.
Russian
President Vladimir Putin speaks during the 7th annual VTB Capital
"Russia Calling!" Investment Forum in Moscow, Russia, October 13, 2015.
(AFP photo)
Russian President Vladimir Putin has
censured as mindless the United States policies vis-à-vis Syria and
Washington's refusal to cooperate with Moscow on ending the crisis in
the Arab country.
"I believe some of our partners simply
have mush for brains," Putin said at an investment forum in the Russian
capital, Moscow, on Tuesday, adding that Washington has declined to
share intelligence on Syria.
“How is it possible to work together?” the Russian president said.
He
added that his country has offered US authorities to have talks at a
high military-political level on the resolution of the conflict in
Syria.
“We proposed a meeting at the high military-political level
in Moscow. I said that we can send a major delegation to Washington to
primarily discuss the issues of Syrian settlement, but there is no
response so far. We believe that it would be a serious authoritative
delegation headed by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Anatolyevich
Medvedev,” Putin said.
‘Contributing to the fight against terror’
Putin also said Russia is fighting terrorism in Syria, and not striving for leadership there. Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) speaks during an investment forum in Moscow, Russia, October 13, 2015. (AFP)
“We
are not in pursuit of any leadership in Syria. There is only one leader
that can be in Syria, it is the Syrian people. We are striving for
contribution to the fight against terrorism, something that is dangerous
for both US and Russia, for European countries, as well as for the rest
of the world, without any kind of exaggeration," the Russian president
stated.
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