Russian air group in Syria turned tide, created conditions for dialogue - Putin

MOSCOW, April 27. /TASS/. Russia’s air group in Syria has turned the tide in the struggle with terrorism in that country and created conditions for a dialogue on settling the conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a message to the 5th Moscow conference on international security, read out by Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev. "Russia’s aerospace group in Syria dealt a mighty blow on the Islamic State (outlawed in Russia) and other terrorist groups, turned the tide and created favorable conditions for advancing intra-Syrian dialogue for the sake of achieving a political settlement of the conflict," Putin’s message to the participants in and guests of the security conference runs. Putin recalled that international terrorism had acquired unprecedented scale and as a matter of fact challenged civilization. "To effectively resist that global threat the world community must take concerted and pro-active measures. This is precisely the aim of the Russian initiative for creating a wide anti-terrorist front on the universal legal and regulatory basis under the auspices of the United Nations," Putin said. He expressed the certainty that the just-started conference would consider in detail a wide range of issues "requiring joint solutions with reliance on international law and the principle of equitable and indivisible security." Putin emphasized the fact that the Russian Defense Ministry-sponsored Moscow forum that brings together defense ministry officials and experts from different countries "has firmly established itself as a crucial floor for professional discussions on a wide range of issues of global and regional security and the search for optimal solutions." Read more