Morning Star.png Syria: Canada Pulls Out Jets, Assad Visits Putin James Tweedie, The Morning Star, London, 22 October 2015 Cracks are showing in the US-led war against Syria after Canada pulled out of the illegal military adventure. New Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made good on his election pledge to end Canada's involvement in a phone call with US President Barack Obama on Tuesday. The White House said Mr Obama called Mr Trudeau to congratulate him on his victory in Monday's elections and the two "committed to strengthening the countries' joint efforts to promote trade, combat terrorism and mitigate climate change." But the Canadian PM told Mr Obama he would withdraw the six Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) jets carrying out bombing raids against Islamic State (Isis) forces in Syria and Iraq. "He understands the commitments I've made around ending the combat missions," Mr Trudeau said. The new Liberal Party government has also pledged to take in 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of the year. Mr Trudeau is the third leader of a NATO member state to break with the US over Syria in less than a week. On Saturday, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico welcomed Russia's intervention in the war against Isis. "If either an American or a Russian attack against targets of the Islamic State were successful, in both cases the same result is what counts," he said. And Czech President Milos Zeman said that Western calls for his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad to step down constituted interference in state affairs that would not be tolerated by Washington. Mr Zeman added that "interventionism has not paid off" in Iraq and Libya. "I can see no reason to continue this meaningless [approach]," he told the Parlamentni Listy website. Meanwhile, Mr Assad paid his first overseas visit since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011 to Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday, flying back yesterday. The two leaders discussed the situation in Syria and the long-term plan for defeating Isis and stabilising the country. Mr Putin said that the war would only end through "a political process with the participation of all political forces, ethnic and religious groups. "The decisive word, without any doubt, must belong solely to the Syrian people," he said. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry agreed to meet in Vienna with their counterparts from Saudi Arabia and Turkey to discuss the Syria crisis, it was announced yesterday. From: http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-4d62-Syria-Canadas-new-PM-pulls-out-jet s-as-Assad-visits-Putin#.VihhPn4rK00 -- -- NEW!!!! SSN FORUM IS ON FACEBOOK!!!! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Swaziland Solidarity Network Forum Google Group. Visit the group home page at http://groups.google.com/group/sa-swaziland-solidarity-eom-forum for more options, pages and files. To post to the group, send email to sa-swaziland-solidarity-eom-forum@googlegroups.com or reply to this message. To unsubscribe, send email to sa-swaziland-solidarity-eom-forum-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Swaziland Solidarity Network Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sa-swaziland-solidarity-eom-forum+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
