Russia: U.S. controlling an "international terrorist alliance"

[MikeWB]

The gloves finally come off.





Last Updated Sep 29, 2016 11:07 AM EDT

Senior Russian officials blasted the United States on Thursday for what they said were Washington's "invitations to use terrorism as a weapon against Russia."

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and others were reacting to comments made the previous day by Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, who suggested terrorists could use the chaotic battleground in Syria to plot and launch attacks "against Russian interests, perhaps even Russian cities."

Kirby was explaining why the U.S. believes Moscow has an interest in halting the bloodshed in Syria's more-than-five-year civil war, which has only escalated during the past week.

But Russian media quoted Ryabkov as saying his nation could not "interpret this as anything else apart from the current U.S. administration's de facto support for terrorism," according to the Reuters news agency.

"These thinly disguised invitations to use terrorism as a weapon against Russia show the political depths the current U.S. administration has stooped to in its approach to the Middle East and specifically to Syria," Ryabkov said.

Defense Ministry spokeswoman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said later Thursday that Kirby's statement amounted to "the most frank confession by the U.S. side so far that the whole 'opposition' ostensibly fighting a 'civil war' in Syria is a U.S.-controlled international terrorist alliance."

"What makes Kirby's statement particularly shocking is that the scale of direct U.S. influence on terrorists' activity is global and reaches as far as Russia."

The remarks by Russian officials have shown a degree of mistrust and strain between Moscow and Washington after the collapse of the U.S.-Russia-brokered truce and the Syrian army onslaught on Aleppo backed by Russian warplanes. The growing friction makes it increasingly unlikely that the cease-fire could be revived.

Ryabkov also chided the Obama administration for its threat to halt cooperation with Russia in the Syria conflict, saying it constituted an "emotional breakdown."

Ryabkov rejected Washington's calls for a seven-day pause in hostilities, but said Russia was willing to support a 48-hour truce for humanitarian purposes around the embattled city of Aleppo.

Ryabkov's comments follow U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's warning that the U.S. will stop coordinating with Moscow​ unless Russian and Syrian attacks on Aleppo end.

Ryabkov was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying of the U.S. that "a certain emotional breakdown occurred."

He also reiterated Russia's stance that a seven-day pause in the Aleppo offensive would give militant groups time to regroup.

https://archive.fo/aHE61