Putin swipes at US in combative UN speech

Russian President Vladimir Putin doubled down on his support for embattled Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in a combative speech before the United Nations on Monday.

The Russian leader’s remarks countered remarks by President Obama, who chided Moscow’s growing assertiveness in Syria from the same lectern just two hours earlier. The two men are to meet later on Monday in what is sure to be a tense bilateral meeting.

{mosads}“We think it is an enormous mistake to refuse to cooperate with the Syrian government and its armed forces,” Putin said at the annual gathering of world leaders in New York. “We should finally acknowledge that no one but President Assad and the Kurdish militias are truly fighting the Islamic State and other Islamic terrorist organizations in Syria.”

Putin’s comments shortly after noon on Monday did little to quell skepticism about the odds for progress between the U.S. and Russia.

The two countries are becoming increasingly bound to each other in Syria, after Russia’s recent efforts to play a greater role in the conflict, though their policies are clearly in conflict. Putin has come to the defense of Assad, a Russian ally, even as the U.S. has insisted that Assad needs to leave power.

The power vacuum created by the four-year-old civil war has created room for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which has grown in strength and only complicated the political dynamic.

The Obama administration has attempted to support moderate elements of the Syrian opposition, though that effort has been undercut by its embarrassingly lackluster results. This weekend, the Pentagon confirmed that weapons that had been given to those rebels had been passed along to affiliates of al Qaeda. 

“The situation is more than dangerous,” Putin said on Monday, in one of multiple apparent swipes at the White House.

“It is highly critical and irresponsible to make threats about the threat of international terrorism while turning a blind eye to the challenges of financing and supporting terrorists,” he said, in what many believe was a reference to the U.S.’s support for some Syrian rebels.

Putin and Obama are scheduled to meet face to face for the first time in more than a year later in the afternoon.

Putin blamed the rise of ISIS — which grew out of al Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq — on the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, as well as on the White House’s support for rebel groups during the Arab Spring of 2010 and 2011.

“Policies based on self-conceit and belief in one’s exceptionalism and impunity have never been abandoned,” Putin said. “It is now obvious that the power vacuum in the Middle East and North Africa led to the emergency of anarchy areas which immediately started to be filled with extremists and terrorists.”

In addition to Syria, the U.S. and Russia have also repeatedly clashed on Ukraine, where Moscow has supported separatist rebels to break away from Kiev.

Here, too, Putin dug in on Monday, making clear that he has no intention of backing off his support for the rebels.

“Ukraine’s territorial integrity cannot be ensured by threat of force of arms,” he said. “What is needed is a genuine consideration of the interests and rights of the people in the Donbass region and respect for their choice,” he said, referring to one self-proclaimed breakaway state.