Iran, Russia, Turkey Agree on Reviving Syria Peace Process

12 Comments

1. 

   Marie3 on December 20, 2016 at 11:34 pm

   So, who had a heads up on this deal?  Any that could mobilize assets in an attempt to derail it?

   • 

     Oui on December 21, 2016 at 4:22 am

     Elections of key democracies have placed any co-ordinated policy on hold …

     Obama is working on polishing his legacy
     David Cameron left the Brexit echec to his new conservative leader May
     Hollande sank by the weight of his impopularity extremis
     Renzi tripped over his own proposition for constitutional change
     Merkel is once again up for re-election, believing she can’t be missed in Europe
     KSA is busy on training missions for its sons flying state-of-the-art fighter planes
     and dropping UK cluster bombs on the civilian population of Yemen.

     • 

       Marie3 on December 21, 2016 at 10:40 am

       Assassinations don’t require coordination among opposing nations.  Or even any direction from the top dog.  Although a secret sign-off from one may be more common than is publicly known (ie Eisenhower on Patrice Lumumba), but less common than suspicious minds claim.  Based on the sketchy information currently available, no way to tell if this assassin was a lone wolf (who do exist) or “hired help.”  

     • 

       Oui on December 21, 2016 at 1:42 pm

       ○ Anschlag in Berlin: Bundesanwaltschaft fahndet öffentlich nach Anis Amri | The Süddeutsche Zeitung |

       • 

         Oui on December 22, 2016 at 3:10 pm

         Fingerprints in Berlin truck match those of suspect Anis Amri | The Guardian |

         Speaking at a joint press conference with Angela Merkel, Thomas de Maizière said the fingerprints and other evidence made it “highly probable” that the Tunisian suspect was the perpetrator of Monday’s terrorist attack.

         The German daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported earlier that Amri’s fingerprints were found on the driver’s door of the Polish-registered truck, while the daily Berliner Zeitung reported that his fingerprints were also found on the steering wheel.

         The chancellor said she hoped the suspect would be caught soon and that she had been heartened by the public reaction to the tragedy. “In the last few days I have been very proud of how level-headed the reaction of the majority of people to this situation has been.”

          « click for more info
         Amri's mother sits with a portrait of her son. His family has admitted he ran into trouble when he left Tunisia for Europe (Photo: Deutsche Welle)

         …
         Tunisian authorities have reportedly questioned Amri’s parents. His brother Abdelkader told Associated Press: “I ask him to turn himself into the police. If it is proved that he is involved, we dissociate ourselves from it.”

         Amri’s family lives in the central Tunisian town of Oueslatia, near Kairouan, a holy city of Islam which became a Salafist stronghold for a time after the 2011 revolution that overthrew long-time dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

         Abdelkader said his brother may have been radicalised in prison in Italy, where he went after leaving Tunisia following the Arab spring uprisings.

         Amri reportedly had links to a Salafist circle around Ahmad Abdelazziz, also known as Abu Walaa, an Iraqi-born preacher based in the German town of Hildesheim, who was arrested in November. Abu Walaa is suspected by the state prosecutor of openly supporting Isis and helping to recruit people for the terrorist group. The preacher denies having any links to Isis.

         ○ US Made Riot Gas Used Against Protesters Tahrir Square
       • 

         Oui on December 22, 2016 at 3:11 pm

         Fingerprints in Berlin truck match those of suspect Anis Amri | The Guardian |

         Speaking at a joint press conference with Angela Merkel, Thomas de Maizière said the fingerprints and other evidence made it “highly probable” that the Tunisian suspect was the perpetrator of Monday’s terrorist attack.

         The German daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported earlier that Amri’s fingerprints were found on the driver’s door of the Polish-registered truck, while the daily Berliner Zeitung reported that his fingerprints were also found on the steering wheel.

         The chancellor said she hoped the suspect would be caught soon and that she had been heartened by the public reaction to the tragedy. “In the last few days I have been very proud of how level-headed the reaction of the majority of people to this situation has been.”

          « click for more info
         Amri's mother sits with a portrait of her son. His family has admitted he ran into trouble when he left Tunisia for Europe (Photo: Deutsche Welle)

         …
         Tunisian authorities have reportedly questioned Amri’s parents. His brother Abdelkader told Associated Press: “I ask him to turn himself into the police. If it is proved that he is involved, we dissociate ourselves from it.”

         Amri’s family lives in the central Tunisian town of Oueslatia, near Kairouan, a holy city of Islam which became a Salafist stronghold for a time after the 2011 revolution that overthrew long-time dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

         Abdelkader said his brother may have been radicalised in prison in Italy, where he went after leaving Tunisia following the Arab spring uprisings.

         Amri reportedly had links to a Salafist circle around Ahmad Abdelazziz, also known as Abu Walaa, an Iraqi-born preacher based in the German town of Hildesheim, who was arrested in November. Abu Walaa is suspected by the state prosecutor of openly supporting Isis and helping to recruit people for the terrorist group. The preacher denies having any links to Isis.

         ○ US Made Riot Gas Used Against Protesters Tahrir Square
2. 

   mino on December 21, 2016 at 8:03 am

   We have been pushed out of the dealings because we have been proved unreliable and unable to deliver on our promises.  Not to mention treacherous.

3. 

   Oui on December 21, 2016 at 1:16 pm

   Original headline: Don’t cry for Russia’s slain envoy, who was Putin’s lackey

   Assassination of Russian Ambassador Andrei Karlov was not terrorism, but retribution for Vladimir Putin’s war crimes | New York Daily News | by Gersh Kuntzman

   Justice has been served.

   After watching the death of Karlov, I could not help but remember the case of Ernst vom Rath, the Nazi ambassador to France, who was gunned down inside his consulate by a Jewish student in 1938.

   Like Karlov, Rath was the public face of atrocity — in this case, Adolf Hitler’s genocide, anti-Semitism and coming global aggression.

   That era’s politicians fiddled while Hitler burned down Europe, so it took a nobody named Herschel Grynszpan to stand up for freedom and make a powerful statement that evil must be fought whether in a conference room or on a battlefield.

   Karlov’s job in Turkey was to ease tensions over Russia’s atrocities in Syria and its incursions inside Turkey itself — meaning his job was to enable and normalize Vladimir Putin.

   Given that role, he wasn’t a diplomat, but a soldier, and his death is the same whether it came on a battlefield outside Aleppo or in an art gallery in Ankara.

   His killer was also a soldier — not a terrorist, mind you, but a soldier. Terrorists kill innocent people with trucks in Christmas markets or with planes in skyscrapers. Soldiers kill their fellow soldiers.

   Will history vindicate Mevlut Mert Altintas, Karlov’s assassin? That’s for history to judge. But it has vindicated Herschel Grynszpan — and, indeed, vindicated others who have fought against aggression and fought for freedom.

   Hatred propagated by president Barack Obama, his administration, Samantha Power as US top diplomat at the UN and served to the American people by the media!

4. 

   Oui on December 21, 2016 at 2:16 pm

   How the Military Excluded the White House from International Syria Negotiations | MoA |

   Russia kicked the U.S. out of any further talks about Syria after the U.S. blew a deal which, after long delaying negotiations, Kerry had made with the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. In a recent interview Kerry admits that it was opposition from the Pentagon, not Moscow or Damascus, that had blown up his agreement with Russia over Syria:

   More recently, he has clashed inside the administration with Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. Kerry negotiated an agreement with Russia to share joint military operations, but it fell apart.

   “Unfortunately we had divisions within our own ranks that made the implementation of that
   extremely hard to accomplish,” Kerry said. “But I believe in it, I think it can work, could have worked.”

   Kerry’s agreement with Russia did not just “fell apart”. The Pentagon actively sabotaged it by intentionally and perfidiously attacking the Syrian army.

   The deal with Russia was made in June. It envisioned coordinated attacks on ISIS and al-Qaeda in Syria, both designated as terrorist under two UN Security Council resolutions which call upon all countries to eradicate them.

   For months the U.S. failed to separate its CIA and Pentagon trained, supplied and paid “moderate rebel” from al-Qaeda, thereby blocking the deal. In September the deal was modified and finally ready to be implemented.

   The Pentagon still did not like it but had been overruled by the White House:  

   Kerry leaves a legacy of hope in role at State | Boston Globe |

   Kerry’s tenure has been marked by diplomatic risk-taking and a crushing schedule. He has logged 1.4 million miles, more than any secretary of state in history.

   He’s spent the equivalent of 124 days in the air. The schedule is so extreme — and unpredictable — that members of his press corps have called traveling with him the “Kerry Go-Round.”

   “The last four years, I think we’ve been as productive as any secretary in any administration in history,” Kerry said.

   “Some people try to assert a narrative that somehow this administration was disengaging or pulling back. . . . But the truth is, and the facts support it, that we are — the United States of America — more deeply engaged on more issues of significance, all simultaneously, with consequence, with results, than at any time in the history of our country,” he said.

   ○ Pentagon … eh State Dep’t Suspends Syrian Crisis Talks with Russia
   ○ Syrian Rebels Armed by CIA Fight Those Armed by the Pentagon In Aleppo District
   ○ US ‘Diplomacy’ Dead-Ended In UN Security Council

5. 

   Shaun Appleby on December 21, 2016 at 7:21 pm

   If this were the Spanish Civil War the analogue would be a peace brokered between Mussolini, Franco and Hitler.

   • 

     mino on December 21, 2016 at 7:31 pm

     Sweet jeebus.

     • 

       Shaun Appleby on December 21, 2016 at 7:47 pm

       Sorry, ‘among’ not ‘between’. Late edit.