Tri-Service
US Suspects Russia Will Use 'Ceasefire' To Crush Rebel Groups
The US has dismissed a proposal by Russia for a March 1 ceasefire in Syria, saying Moscow is giving itself and the Syrian government a three-week window to try to crush moderate rebel groups.
Washington countered the proposal with demands for the fighting to stop immediately, US officials said. Peace talks are supposed to resume by February 25.
The talk of new ceasefire plans comes as the US, Russia and more than a dozen other countries meet in Munich to try to halt five years of civil war in Syria. US Secretary of State John Kerry said:
"We will approach this meeting in Munich with great hopes that this will be a telling moment".
His peace push coincides with defence secretary Ash Carter's attendance at a gathering in Brussels to thrash out military options with NATO partners.
Brett McGurk, the Obama administration's point-man for defeating Daesh, said Russia's Aleppo offensive was having the perverse effect of helping the extremists by drawing local fighters away from the battle against the group and to the war against Syria's government.
"What Russia's doing is directly enabling ISIL," Mr McGurk told the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee in Washington.
But the panel's top Democrat echoed some of the frustration of his Republican colleagues with the larger US strategy. Eliot Engel of New York said:
"It seems as if we're only half-heartedly going after ISIS, and halfheartedly helping the (rebel) Free Syria Army and others on the ground."
He urged a "robust campaign, not a tentative one, not one that seems like we're dragging ourselves in ... to destroy ISIS and get rid of Assad".
The civil war in Syria has killed more than a quarter of a million people, created Europe's biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War and allowed Daesh to carve out its own territory across parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq.
Russia says it is supporting Syrian president Bashar Assad's government as part of a counter-terrorism campaign but the West says the majority of its strikes are targeting moderate groups opposed to Assad and Daesh.
The most recent Russian-backed offensive, near Aleppo, prompted opposition groups to walk out of peace talks last month in Geneva, while forcing tens of thousands of civilians to flee towards the Turkish border.
One US source said America could not accept Russia's offer because opposition forces could suffer irreversible losses in northern and southern Syria before the ceasefire even took hold.
The officials said the US counter-proposal was a simple ceasefire effective immediately and accompanied by full humanitarian access to Syria's besieged civilian centres.
The Obama administration has been trying for months to clinch a ceasefire and pave the way for a transition government in Syria that would allow parties to the conflict to concentrate on defeating the threat posed by Daesh and the al Qaida-linked Nusra Front.
The US has tempered its calls dating back to August 2011 for Assad to immediately leave power, however, and to get Russia on board, it will now not even say that Assad should be barred from running for re-election if and when a new Syrian constitution is drafted.
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