MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia had not been defeated in Syria and that Moscow had made proposals to the new rulers in Damascus to maintain Russian military bases there.
In his first public comments on the subject, Putin said he had not yet met former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad since was overthrown and forced to flee to Moscow earlier this month, but that he planned to do so.
In response to a question on the subject from a US journalist, Putin said he would ask Assad about the fate of US reporter Austin Tice, who is missing in Syria, and was ready to ask Syria’s new rulers about Tice’s whereabouts too.
“I will tell you frankly, I have not yet seen President Assad since he came to Moscow. But I plan to do so. I will definitely talk to him,” Putin said at his annual year-end press conference.
The traditional annual question and answer session, often lasting hours, is largely a televised show while also being a rare setting in which he is put on the spot and answers some uncomfortable questions from a carefully selected studio audience.
Putin said most people in Syria with whom Russia had been in contact about the future of its two main military bases in Syria were supportive of them staying, but that talks were ongoing.
Russia, which intervened in Syria in 2015 and turned the tide of the civil war there in Assad’s favour, had also told other countries that they could use its airbase and naval base to bring in humanitarian aid for Syria, he said.
“You want to portray everything that is happening in Syria as some kind of failure, a defeat for Russia. I assure you, it is not,” said Putin.
“And I’ll tell you why. We came to Syria 10 years ago to prevent a terrorist enclave from being created there. On the whole, we have achieved our goal.
“It is not for nothing that today many European countries and the United States want to establish relations with them (Syria’s new rulers). If they are terrorist organisations, why are you (the West) going there? So that means they have changed.”
Ready to talk to Trump
Turning to the war in Ukraine, Putin said he was ready for talks “at any time” with US President-elect Donald Trump, who has claimed that he could achieve a Ukraine peace deal within hours of taking office next month.
Trump has stoked fears in Kyiv that he could force Ukraine to accept peace on terms favourable to Moscow.
“I don’t know when we will meet because he hasn’t said anything about it,” Putin said of Trump. “I haven’t spoken to him at all for more than four years. And I am ready for this, of course, at any time.
“And if a meeting takes place at some point with … Mr Trump, I am sure we will have plenty to talk about.”
He repeated his contention that Moscow has always been ready for “negotiations and compromises” with Kyiv. “It’s just that the other side, both literally and figuratively, refused to negotiate.
“Soon, those Ukrainians who want to fight will run out, in my opinion, soon there will be no one left who wants to fight. We are ready, but the other side needs to be ready for both negotiations and compromises.”
