Washington: U.S. President Barack Obama, before departing from the Climate Summit in Paris, spoke about his strategy against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and the diplomatic pressure to push out Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The Washington Post reports that Obama was confident that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin would alter his strategy regarding Syria and extend support to a political solution which would include Assad’s exit.
However, he admitted that he did not expect Putin’s strategy against the ISIS to make a quick turn.
“I don’t expect that you are going to see a 180 turn on their strategy over the next several weeks. They have invested for years now in keeping Assad in power. Their presence there is predicated on propping him up,” he said.
Obama added that he was not under any illusions that Russia would spare the ‘moderate opposition forces’ which were being backed by U.S allies and only bomb the ISIS targets. (ANI)