Friday, 18 December 2015. The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, in his eleventh annual press conferences before 1,400 foreign and Russian journalists, done in the Municipal Center of Moscow; he stated that his support for Syria against terrorism has not ended, on the contrary, plans to continue contributing with the Army of the Arab nation as necessary; starting with the air support.
He said that this poses no serious burden for the budget of his nation. Therefore, he will make every effort in the search for a solution to this conflict dating from March 2011, and noted that he expects that the solutions be accepted by all the parties involved in the negotiations; despite to being this a rather delicate matter. On the other hand, he took advantage of this stage to refer to issues related to Syria, Ukraine, Turkey and the United States; as well as the economy of his country.
Although since the month of September, Russia supports a military operation against terrorism in Syria, in combination with the representative of the Arab Nation, Bashar Al Assad; Putin completely ruled out the possibility of installing a permanent military base, considering it as unnecessary; because if they want to get someone they get him and that’s all, because they have military weapons which they had not had before; as is the case of the Kalibr Missiles, with sea-base and 1,500 kilometers of scope; and the X-101 missiles installed in aircraft, with a range of 4,500 kilometers.
The Russian President agreed with the US view, in that the only solution to put an end to the terrorist attacks, it is the consequent normalization of the political crisis of Syria; that in his opinion, the key is in establish joint work on the new constitution, development of tools to hold early elections, carrying them out and recognize the results. He emphasized that “all parties to the conflict have to find for themselves the forces to keep going”, stressing that the fate of Syria will be decided by the Syrians.
In regard to what happened with the demolition of the Su-24 Russian airplane in Syrian territory by Turkey he has not discarded that had complicity between Ankara and Washington. Therefore, he was skeptical of the possibility he that relations with Turkey will improve in the near future; because apparently feels betrayed, since he mentioned -in a very ambiguous way-, that in the autumn of last year Russia accepted to assist Turkey in a very delicate matter, and that at that level of confidence he did not understand why they had not discussed and reached agreement.
For this reason, last month he prohibited imports of certain products from Turkey, suspended trade relations with Turkish companies, prevented the Russians to recruit Turkish workers, suspended visas for Turkish citizens and canceled all charter flights between Russia and Turkey.
ALFA