WASHINGTON DC: In his first visit to Washington since 2013, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is expected to meet US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Tuesday to mainly discuss the Syrian war and seek support for Russia’s plan attempting to de-escalate the conflict.
While the initial location for the Tillerson-Lavrov meeting was planned for Alaska on the margins of the “Arctic Council Ministerial” summit, it was moved to Washington as per the US State Department announcement.
The two diplomats will “discuss Ukraine, Syria, and bilateral issues,” the State Department said. “On Ukraine, the sides will discuss the need to stop the violence in eastern Ukraine and resolve the conflict through the full implementation of the Minsk agreements.”
On Syria, “the secretary intends to discuss efforts to de-escalate violence, provide humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people, and set the stage for a political settlement of the conflict.”
Charles Lister, a Syria analyst at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said that if “Russia gets what it wants, Syria will again be the first topic on the agenda” in Lavrov’s meetings.
“Moscow has invested all of its cards in the Astana process and the establishment of four “de-escalation zones” in Syria,” Lister said.
Yet the “lack of any enforcement mechanisms means” and that “Russia, Iran and the Assad regime are permitted to continue attacks on suspected Al-Qaeda-linked groups, which happen to be conveniently present in all four zones” should be of concern for the Trump administration, according to Lister.
“Russia has a great deal to lose should this initiative fall apart, which makes acquiring a more committed US statement of support extremely important,” added Lister, stressing that “Lavrov will be seeking just that on Wednesday.”
The US, however, has reacted with caution to the Astana plan. US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis described it during his recent trip to Denmark as being “It’s all in process right now.”
The US defense chief asked, “Who is going to be ensuring they’re safe? Who is signing up for it? Who is specifically to be kept out of them? All these details are to be worked out and we’re engaged.”
“We’ll look at the proposal, see if it can work,” said Mattis, keeping the priority on defeating Daesh in Syria. “Will it affect the fight against ISIS (Daesh)? I think the international community is united in the sense of wanting to see ISIS put on its back foot.”
“The devil is always in the details, right? So we have to look at the details, see if we can work them out, see if we think they’re going to be effective” Mattis said, promising “to at least examine it very, very carefully.” “All wars eventually come to an end. And we’ve been looking, for a long time, how to bring this one to an end,” he added.
Earlier, Tillerson and Lavrov deputies Thomas Shannon and Sergey Ryabkov met in New York to finalize the arrangements and the agenda for their bosses’ meeting.
Lavrov comes to Washington seeking US support on Syria
Lavrov comes to Washington seeking US support on Syria
French publisher recalls dictionary over ‘Jewish settler’ reference
- The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks”
- The four books are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said
PARSI: French publisher Hachette on Friday said it had recalled a dictionary that described the Israeli victims of the October 7, 2023 attacks as “Jewish settlers” and promised to review all its textbooks and educational materials.
The Larousse dictionary for 11- to 15-year-old students contained the same phrase as that discovered by an anti-racism body in three revision books, the company told AFP.
The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks, Israel decided to tighten its economic blockade and invade a large part of the Gaza Strip, triggering a major humanitarian crisis in the region.”
The worst attack in Israeli history saw militants from the Palestinian Islamist group kill around 1,200 people in settlements close to the Gaza Strip and at a music festival.
“Jewish settlers” is a term used to describe Israelis living on illegally occupied Palestinian land.
The four books, which were immediately withdrawn from sale, are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said, promising a “thorough review of its textbooks, educational materials and dictionaries.”
France’s leading publishing group, which came under the control of the ultra-conservative Vincent Bollore at the end of 2023, has begun an internal inquiry “to determine how such an error was made.”
It promised to put in place “a new, strengthened verification process for all its future publications” in these series.
President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said that it was “intolerable” that the revision books for the French school leavers’ exam, the baccalaureat, “falsify the facts” about the “terrorist and antisemitic attacks by Hamas.”
“Revisionism has no place in the Republic,” he wrote on X.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, with 251 people taken hostage, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Authorities in Gaza estimate that more than 70,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces during their bombardment of the territory since, while nearly 80 percent of buildings have been destroyed or damaged, according to UN data.
Israeli forces have killed at least 447 Palestinians in Gaza since a ceasefire took effect in October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
