Saudi Arabia and Turkey, two major US allies in the Middle East, are actively pursuing a “Plan B” to partition Syria amid the war-torn country’s years-long struggle with foreign-backed militancy, says a political analyst in Washington.
James Jatras, a former US Senate foreign policy analyst, while discussing US Secretary of State John Kerry’s warning to Russia, saying that Washington’s patience with Moscow was running out on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's future.
Since March 2011, the US and its regional allies, in particular Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, have been conducting a proxy war against Syria, providing support to terrorist groups fighting against the Syrian people and government.
Russia launched an aerial campaign against the terror groups’ positions inside Syria in September last year, upon a request from Damascus.
“It is unclear what Secretary Kerry means about either holding Russia or the opposition groups accountable for violating the ceasefire,” Jatras told Press TV on Wednesday.
Syria is currently observing a ceasefire mediated by Russia and the US, which entered into force on February 27.
The truce was reached between the Syrian government and dozens of militant groups operating in the country, except for Daesh and al-Nusra.
Jatras said Washington has been protecting al-Qaeda affiliates like the al-Nusra Front in Syria from the Syrian Army and Russian airstrikes.
“It is Russia’s unwillingness to conceive that, that has Mr. Kerry threatening to run out of patience and to double down on support of these terrorist groups,” the analyst argued.
“We know that our so-called allies, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, have been suggesting this very thing, the so-called Plan B to step up their terrorist campaign in Syria, and to arrange for some sort of partition of the country,” he continued.
Both Turkey and Saudi Arabia have said they were waiting for a US nod after announcing their bid for ground operations inside Syria.
According to a February report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the conflict has claimed the lives of over 470,000 people in total.