Russian Military Buildup Near Aleppo, Syria, Threatens Truce, Kerry Warns
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Russia’s military buildup, described by Mr. Kerry in a meeting with The New York Times editorial board, came on the same day that talks in Geneva aimed at finding a political resolution to the years of civil war began to break down.
After the main opposition coalition walked out, Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations special envoy for Syria, said the fragile truce was “in great trouble if we don’t act quickly.”
Mr. Kerry, who was in New York attending the signing of the Paris agreement on climate change, said that he was generally encouraged by Russia’s participation in the diplomatic effort. But he said he was not certain if Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin was sincere in his stated aims for the buildup: combating terrorism.
“We are not going to sit there and let him do his thing supporting the regime and hammer at the opposition and say, ‘This is working,’ ” Mr. Kerry said. “Obviously, we’re not stupid about it.”
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If Mr. Assad were to retake Aleppo, he would once again control what was before the war Syria’s largest city and economic center. Such a victory would give his government a psychological boost after more than five years of war.
Ever since Mr. Putin injected military forces into the Syrian civil war last fall, promising to target extremist Islamist groups, the Russian operation has been aimed more directly at shoring up the power of his regional ally, Mr. Assad.
Asked whether the latest Russian intervention was truly aimed at fighting shared Islamist enemies or rather a means of helping Mr. Assad, Mr. Kerry said, “We have yet to discover whether they are bona fide.”
Mr. Kerry said that the Russians might be moving on Aleppo because members of the Al Nusra Front, an affiliate of Al Qaeda, were mixed throughout parts of the region, and that they were terrorists not party to the cease-fire. At the same time, he said, the region is home to insurgent groups that oppose Mr. Assad and have agreed to the cease-fire.
“That has proven harder to separate them than we thought,” Mr. Kerry said. “And there’s a Russian impatience and a regime impatience with the terrorists who are behaving like terrorists and laying siege to places on their side and killing people.”
He said that to try to head off renewed fighting they have agreed with the Russians to a new 24-hour monitoring system. “We’ve even proposed drawing a line, an absolute line, and saying, ‘You don’t go over there, we don’t go over here, and anything in between is fair game.’ And they are considering that, and I think we will get there in the next week or so.”
Mr. Kerry said that President Obama on Monday spoke directly to President Putin about the buildup near Aleppo, adding that he planned to speak with his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, later on Friday.
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Mr. Kerry declined to discuss what options the Obama administration might pursue. Analysts suggested that the options were few and perilous and that the Obama administration had shown no appetite for wading deeper into a messy war.
The United States has so far resisted giving increased lethal military aid to nonextremist opposition fighters, including shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons that would render Russian aircraft vulnerable, but could fall into the hands of terrorists.
The administration could potentially unleash covert Special Forces to take on the Islamists, but that would go against the grain of a pillar of the Obama administration’s policy to avoid further military involvement in the Middle East.
Analysts said they viewed the latest American moves to pressure Russia to avoid hostilities as no more credible than past threats.
“For this administration, it’s always been about ISIS,” said Andrew J. Tabler, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, referring to the Islamic State group. “If the Russians are there and they are propping up the regime, well, O.K.”
Mr. Tabler said the Russians had never had the same objective as the United States when it came to the partial truce. Instead, Russia agreed to a pause in hostilities in February, and then began pulling out some forces, while preserving a large enough offensive force to continue to wage war on behalf of Mr. Assad.
Aleppo is now divided, roughly split between the government-held west and rebel-held east. If the government can retake all of Aleppo and maintain the capital, Damascus, it effectively wins the war, Mr. Tabler said, adding that this would banish the Islamists and more moderate opposition groups to the desolation of sparsely populated areas to the east.
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“The administration can let the Russians try to blast their way out of it, but the Russians blasting their way out it exacerbates the migrant crisis,” Mr. Tabler said. “The Russian activities are expelling people out of the country. Russia plays the role of arsonist and firefighter.”
Mr. Kerry all but acknowledged that America’s options were limited should it find itself at cross-purposes with Russian forces in Syria.
“The problem is when you go down that other road you’re talking about a lot more fighting and a lot more casualties and you’re talking about a lot more refugees and that brings with it a whole different set of problems,” Mr. Kerry said. “So, are we bending over backwards to try to make it work? Yeah, we are going to try to make it work.”
Nick Cumming-Bruce and Anne Barnard contributed reporting.
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