Putin urges EU, U.S. to work jointly to motivate forces in Syria towards political settlement

MOSCOW, October 13. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has voiced regret over the fact that the contacts with the United States are maintained only at the level of the military, while joint work to motivate forces in Syria towards the political settlement is needed. He was speaking at the Russia Calling! investment forum on Tuesday. "In my opinion, all of us should be interested in that [the settlement of the Syrian crisis]," Putin said. "Unfortunately, although this may be not bad for the beginning, the work is going on only at the level of the military agencies and only on military and technical issues, up to comparing the friend-or-foe systems on our aircraft. But I believe that this is not enough." "If we want to be effective, if we want not to just shoot and carry out missile strikes and reach a political settlement, we must motivate those forces inside the country, and the conflict is complex, multi-faceted, to joint work between various forces on the territory of Syria itself," the Russian leader said. Putin added that his conversation with U.S. President Barack Obama had been very frank. "We saw our partners’ interest in joint work," the Russian president said. According to Putin, it is necessary to work with those people whom we may influence, "to persuade them to sit down at the negotiating table and finally begin the political settlement process." "We haven’t reached this point yet in our joint work either with the United States or with the Europeans, but, above all, the United States," he noted, adding that Russia suggested holding a high-level military and political meeting in Moscow. "So far, there has been no reply," he said. Read more