Putin is strengthening Isis in Syria, says UK foreign secretary [View all]

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Source: Guardian UK

Russian president Vladimir Putin is undermining international efforts to end the Syrian civil war by bombing opponents of Islamic State in an attempt to bolster Bashar al-Assad, British foreign secretary Philip Hammond said on Monday.

In a clear sign of frustration with the Kremlin, Hammond scolded Putin for paying lip service to a political process aimed at ending the civil war while also bombing opponents of Assad who the West hopes could shape Syria once Assad is gone.

When Russia began airstrikes in September, Putin tilted the war in President Assad’s favour, after major setbacks earlier in 2015 brought rebel groups close to the coastal heartland of his Alawite sect.

“It’s a source of constant grief to me that everything we are doing is being undermined by the Russians,” Hammond told Reuters at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, about 10km (six miles) south of the border with Syria. “The Russians say let’s talk, and then they talk and they talk and they talk. The problem with the Russians is while they are talking they are bombing, and they are supporting Assad,” Hammond said.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/02/putin-strengthening-isis-syria-uk-foreign-secretary-philip-hammond-russia