Islamic State cannot be defeated without cooperation with Syria’s, Iraq’s authorities - Russian upper house speaker

AMMAN, October 5. /TASS/. The terrorist group Islamic State cannot be exterminated without cooperation with the Syrian and Iraqi authorities, Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of Russia’s Federation Council upper parliament house, said on Monday. "We think that it is impossible to exterminate the Islamic State without cooperation with the Syrian authorities," she said at a meeting with President of Jordan’s Senate Abdelraouf al-Rawabdeh. She reminded that the problem of destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons had been finally resolved in cooperation with the United States and the West. "We all cooperated with Syria’s current government and have managed to avoid a big catastrophe - the use of chemical weapons," she said. "Could it be possible without cooperation with the Syrian authorities?" She said she thought the Western countries and the United States were beginning to see that. "Their position has been considerably softened after the meeting between the Russian and U.S. presidents. Now they are no longer demanding immediate resignation of [Syrian President Bashar] Assad," Matviyenko said. In her words, task number one "is to exterminate the Islamic State, phased reforms in Syria and expression of people’s will." She cited a top-ranking Iranian official as saying that it was impossible to defeat the Islamic State when "coalition members deliver air strikes in the daytime and drop new weapons to the Islamic State in the nighttime." "Russia has no other political goals but to make a contribution to the defeat of the Islamic State," Matviyenko stressed. The Islamic State is an Islamic terrorist organization banned in Russia. In 2013-2014, it was known under the name the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and operated mainly in Iraq and Syria. In June 2014, the Islamic State announced the establishment of an "Islamic caliphate" (a state with a Sharia form of government) on the territories it had seized and reduced its name to the Islamic State. According to the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency, the extremist group numbers around 30,000 people. The Iraqi authorities say however it has up to 200,000 gunmen. Among members of the group are citizens of 80 countries, including France, Great Britain, Germany, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, U.S., Canada, Russia and other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Islamic State militants reportedly control up to 40 percent of the Iraq’s territory and about 50 percent of the Syrian territory. Read more