Analyst:

Foreign sponsorship of terrorists, main cause of Syria war

Rasa - Syria's ambassador to the UN and chief negotiator has said that the main condition for the Syrian government to continue peace talks is to negotiate with a “unified” national opposition which is not linked to any foreign countries.

News ID: 427873

Date: 04 March 2017 - 21:56

RNA - “I think the ambassador has some excellent points in terms of who is it exactly that the Syrian government is supposed to be talking to on the other side of the table. For one thing yes, it is extremely difficult when you are not talking to just one interlocutor but a whole gaggle of different groups with perhaps different agendas,” James Jatras, a former US Senate foreign policy analyst, told Press TV in an interview on Saturday.

“And the other thing of course is we are talking through them to their foreign sponsors; that the real issue here is not a civil war among Syrians, although obviously there are Syrians among the opposition groups but there are also an awful lot of foreigners,” he added.

The analyst, however, stated that the terrorist ideology and methodology is “virtually identical” among all the so-called opposition groups.

He said that the Syrian conflict would not exist if it were not for the sponsorship of “outside powers,” namely the United States and its regional allies.

Jatras further opined that the Syrian government’s victories on the battlefield will be the main force that will finally drive the countries that are sponsoring the terrorists to pull back their support and try to reach a political settlement.

He went on to say that if the outside powers decide to back off, then “the terrorists really do not have many legs to stand on.”

Therefore, he said, that is why it is really important for the United States to come to a “working understanding” with the Russians about how to settle the Syrian conflict.

847/940