News / Interviews

Saudi Arabia, Turkey must abide by Syria truce: Expert

Saturday, 27 February 2016 6:14 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 28 February 2016 8:33 AM ]

Syrians drive past government billboards in Damascus, February 27, 2016, as the first major ceasefire of the five-year war takes hold and an international task force prepares to begin monitoring the landmark truce. (AFP photo)

Press TV has interviewed James Petras, a Middle East expert in New York, to discuss a ceasefire brokered by Moscow and Washington which has come into effect in Syria.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Are you optimistic that the ceasefire can hold?

Petras: I think let’s be realistic. I think one can expect that the Syrian government and the Russians and their supporters among Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guards will abide by the agreement.

The question, the big question is whether Saudi Arabia which has been financing the terrorist groups, Daesh and others, and Turkey which has been shelling northern Syria will abide by the agreement and secondly if these interventions in the present period, these bombings that are taking place after the agreement are by terrorist groups or Western-backed groups.

So I think it all depends on Western compliance with the agreements and whether they can restrain Saudi Arabia and Turkey from violating the agreement. That is the big question.

Press TV: Do you think that the United States wants this ceasefire to last? On the one hand it was involved with Russia in actually brokering this ceasefire, on the other hand comments coming from Washington officials saying that if it does not work there is already another plan in the making which is the breaking up of Syria?

Petras: I think that is the strategic call. I think the Israelis who have really influenced US policy because they have many of their key operatives in strategic positions in the United States, that is what their goal is to carve up, balkanize Syria into different zones which they can then use to further encroach, in other words to engage in a kind of salami slicing process here taking bits since they failed to seize all of Syria, to take Syria a piecemeal.

I think this is a very, very dangerous sign as far as the ceasefire agreement. I think we have to keep in mind that the US is operating on two tracks - one is Kerry who is negotiating and presents the peaceful face and the Pentagon which has been pushing for an escalation of the war and I think the piecemeal approach is a compromise between the State Department and the Pentagon.

So I think the danger of balkanization is real. I think the use of terrorist groups to initiate that process is a real possibility.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk