U.S. inviting terrorism as a weapon against Russia: Deputy FM

(AhlulBayt News Agency) - A top Russian diplomat blasted the United States on Thursday for what he said were Washington’s “invitations to use terrorism as a weapon against Russia.”

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was reacting to comments made the previous day by Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, who suggested terrorists could use the chaotic battleground in Syria to plot and launch attacks “against Russian interests, perhaps even Russian cities.”

Kirby was explaining why the U.S. believes Moscow has an interest in halting the bloodshed in Syria’s more-than-five-year civil war, which has only escalated during the past week.

But Russian media quoted Ryabkov as saying his nation could not “interpret this as anything else apart from the current U.S. administration’s de facto support for terrorism,” according to the Reuters news agency.

“These thinly disguised invitations to use terrorism as a weapon against Russia show the political depths the current U.S. administration has stooped to in its approach to the Middle East and specifically to Syria,” Ryabkov said.

He also chided the Obama administration for its threat to halt cooperation with Russia in the Syria conflict, saying it constituted an “emotional breakdown.”

Ryabkov rejected Washington’s calls for a seven-day pause in hostilities, but said Russia was willing to support a 48-hour truce for humanitarian purposes around the embattled city of Aleppo​.

Ryabkov’s comments follow U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s warning that the U.S. will stop coordinating with Moscow​ unless Russian and Syrian attacks on Aleppo end.

Ryabkov was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying of the U.S. that “a certain emotional breakdown occurred.”

He also reiterated Russia’s stance that a seven-day pause in the Aleppo offensive would give militant groups time to regroup.



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