France Says Russia Open to Cooperation in IS Fight in Syria as Moscow Demands Sovereignty Be Respected
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/November 19/15/
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Thursday that Russia was sincere in wanting to cooperate in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria.”There is an opening, so to speak, with the Russians. We think they are sincere and we must bring together all our forces,” Fabius told France Inter radio. Relations between France and Russia have deteriorated since last year’s Ukraine crisis.But both countries have suffered major terror attacks at the hands of IS in recent weeks — the coordinated gun and bomb attacks last Friday in Paris, and the bombing of a Russian passenger jet over Egypt last month. President Francois Hollande called this week for the “bringing together of all those who can realistically fight against this terrorist army in a large and unique coalition”, while his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin ordered his navy in the Mediterranean to establish contact with its French counterparts and work together “as allies”.
Later on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that Moscow is ready to work with the Western coalition fighting the IS if its members respect Syria’s sovereignty. “We…are ready for practical cooperation with those countries which are part of the coalition and are ready to develop with them such forms of coordination that of course would respect Syria’s sovereignty and the prerogatives of the Syrian leadership,” Lavrov said in an interview with state-run Radio of Russia.
“I am convinced that such forms can be found if we take a pragmatic approach.”
Russia first launched air strikes on Syria in September at the request of its long-standing ally President Bashar Assad, while a U.S.-led coalition of countries opposed to the Syrian strongman is conducting a separate air campaign against IS. In the aftermath of the Paris attacks on Friday, French President Francois Hollande called this week for a broad anti-IS coalition, echoing an earlier call made by Putin made at the U.N. General Assembly in September. Hollande said he would next week discuss his proposal with U.S. President Barack Obama and Putin, who has ordered his navy in the Mediterranean to establish contact with its French counterparts and work together “as allies”. Putin has been seeking to capitalize on shifting dynamics in the West following the Paris carnage and the bombing of a Russian passenger plane over Sinai in October, arguing that Russia and the West should unite against a common enemy.
Lavrov said he first detected a change in the Western position after Putin called for a broad coalition to fight the IS jihadists in Syria. On Wednesday Russia submitted a revised draft U.N. resolution on fighting the IS group that France said could be partially included in its own Security Council proposal. “Right now sensible politicians are putting secondary things aside and understand that it’s necessary to focus attention on the priority: to prevent efforts by ISIL to conquer positions on the huge territory on Earth,” Lavrov said, using another acronym for IS.
Lavrov reiterated Russia’s traditional stance that Assad protected the interests of “a significant part of Syrian society” therefore it would not be possible to reach a settlement “without his participation.””Our Western partners realized the lack of prospects for the approach that many of them had taken,” Russia’s top diplomat said, referring to the insistence in the West that Assad should immediately step down.He also praised signs of rapprochement between Russia and the West following months of tensions over Ukraine. “Our Western partners have put some formats on ice,” he said, referring to venues such as the NATO-Russia Council.
“But this process is already returning to normal, the work of these mechanisms is resuming.” Also on Thursday, Russia’s chief of general staff held talks with his French counterpart on combating the IS in Syria, in the first such contact since the start of the Ukraine conflict last year. Valery Gerasimov and Pierre de Villiers “discussed on the phone the coordination of military troops’ actions against IS terrorists in Syria,” the Russian defense ministry said in a statement, adding that the conversation lasted an hour.
The two military chiefs “exchanged their evaluations of the current situation in the country” following calls to unite efforts against IS group by presidents Putin and Hollande. “The terrorist acts in Paris and on board of the Russian passenger plane are links of one chain,” Gerasimov was shown by state television as saying on the phone to his French colleague. “Our grief and our wrath must help join efforts of Russia and France in the fight against international terrorism.”
Putin on Tuesday ordered his navy in the eastern Mediterranean to cooperate with a group of French ships set to arrive in the area Friday and “treat them as allies,” which would be the first such joint operation since World War II. De Villiers and Jean-Yves Le Drian, the defense minister of NATO member France, had no contact with Russian counterparts since Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in March 2014, according to a French source familiar with the situation. Moscow and Paris announced close cooperation against the Islamic State group following the bombing of a Russian airliner over Egypt and the attacks in the French capital, which killed 224 and 129 people respectively.
French PM Warns of Risk of Chemical, Biological Attack
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/November 19/15/
Prime Minister Manuel Valls warned Thursday that France was at risk of a chemical or biological weapons attack, as lawmakers voted to extend a state of emergency imposed after the Paris carnage. The fate of the suspected mastermind of Friday’s attacks was still uncertain after a huge police raid in a northern district of the French capital on Wednesday that left at least two people dead. Investigators have yet to confirm whether the body of Abdelhamid Abaaoud was among the rubble of a shattered apartment block after police rained fire and grenades on the building in a seven-hour siege. Prosecutor Francois Molins said the raid in Saint-Denis had stopped a “new team of terrorists” who were ready to launch another attack in a city still mourning 129 dead, and they believed that senior Islamic State operative Abaaoud was at the building.
At least two other people were killed in the ferocious shootout, including what is thought to be a woman who detonated an explosives vest. Valls warned of the dangers still faced by France as he opened a parliamentary debate that later saw lawmakers extend an extraordinary package of security measures for three months.”We must not rule anything out,” Valls said. “There is also the risk from chemical or biological weapons.” He called on France’s European Union partners to urgently adopt measures to share airline passenger information. “More than ever, it’s time for Europe to adopt the text… to guarantee the traceability of movements, including within the union. It’s a condition of our collective security,” he said.The state of emergency will be in place for three months from November 26 after lawmakers approved the extension. – Raids in Belgium -At least 129 people were killed in the shootings and suicide bombings that targeted a concert hall, bars and restaurants and the Stade de France national stadium, Europe’s second deadliest terror attack in history.
As the Paris probe widened to countries across Europe, Belgian police staged six raids in the Brussels area linked to a suicide bomber who blew himself outside the French stadium, prosecutors said. Italy was also looking for five suspects after an FBI tip-off about possible jihadist attacks on landmark sites including St Peter’s cathedral in the Vatican, the foreign minister said. Under one of the measures being adopted in France, police officers will be allowed to carry weapons when they are off duty. Officers will be allowed to use their guns in the event of an attack providing they wear a police armband to avoid “any confusion”, according to a directive seen by Agence France Presse. Eight suspects were arrested in the massive Saint-Denis raid, but neither Abaaoud, the Belgian suspected of orchestrating the Paris attacks, nor another key suspect, Salah Abdeslam, were among them.
Abdeslam is thought to be one of the only surviving members of the gang. His suicide-bomber brother Brahim Abdeslam blew himself up in a cafe but did not kill anyone else. As international efforts to fight the Islamic State group stepped up, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Russia was “sincere” in wanting to cooperate against IS in Syria. “There is an opening, so to speak, with the Russians. We think they are sincere and we must bring together all our forces,” he told France Inter radio. But world powers remain deeply divided over the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has strong backing from Moscow. US President Barack Obama said Thursday that Syria’s brutal civil war could not end while Assad remained in power.
U.S. warning
U.S. intelligence meanwhile published a report showing it warned in May that IS was capable of carrying out the kind of large-scale coordinated attacks seen in Paris. The assessment from the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, in coordination with the FBI, specifically refers to Abaaoud as a ringleader of Belgian plotters and warned Europe was more at risk of attack than the United States. Abaaoud was previously thought to be in Syria after fleeing raids in his native Belgium earlier this year. IS released a new video threatening New York, and specifically Times Square, although police said there was no “current and specific” threat. Hours after President Francois Hollande had urged the nation not to resort to anti-Muslim or anti-Semitic reprisals in the wake of the attacks, a Jewish teacher was stabbed and wounded in Marseille by three people shouting anti-Semitic obscenities and expressing support for IS. France is coming to terms with being attacked for a second time in less than year. In January, jihadist gunmen killed 17 people at Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, on the streets and in a Jewish supermarket. Citing security fears, the government has cancelled two mass rallies scheduled for November 29 and December 12 — the days before and after a key UN climate summit to be held outside Paris.