MOSCOW:
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered his armed forces to pull out
from Syria, over five months after he ordered the launch of a military
operation that support his friend, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“I believe
that the task put before the defense ministry and Russian armed forces has, on
the whole, been fulfilled,” Putin said at a Kremlin meeting with his defense
and foreign ministers at which he publicized the removal, starting on Tuesday.
Kremlin
spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had phoned Assad to notify him of the
Russian decision. The move was publicized on the day United Nations-arrange meetings
between the combatant sides in Syria recommenced in Geneva.
Putin ordered
an increase of Russia’s diplomatic efforts to achieve a peace deal to end the
civil war in Syria that has hauled on for five years, killed thousands of
people and expatriate millions, many of them in search of refuge in Europe.
But the
Russian leader gestured Moscow would keep a military presence: he did not give
a deadline for the completion of the removal and said Russian forces would stay
on at the port of Tartous and at the Hmeymim air base in Syria’s Latakia
province, from which Russia has propelled most of its air strikes.
Queries
remained about the practical consequences of Putin’s announcement. It was not
clear if Russian air strikes would stop. Russia will hold the competence to
launch them, from the base in Latakia province.
Concluded its
interference in Syria, Putin has restored Russia status as a major
international player capable of exercising its influence far from its borders,
and forced the United States to calculate with Moscow’s interests.
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