Konashenkov: If US can’t or won’t fight terrorists, they should stop getting in the way

The Russian Defense Ministry commented on the US State Department’s calls not to help tankers shipping fuel to the Russian Aerospace Forces in Syria. "If Washington cannot or does not want to fight terrorists, it should not get in the way," the ministry’s spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Thursday, Al-Masdar News reported.

US State Department spokesman Mark Toner urged other countries not to provide support for Russian tankers shipping fuel to the Russian aviation group in Syria. “Such statements, unfortunately, only confirm our earlier estimates that fighting terrorism in Syria has never been on the outgoing administration’s agenda,” Konashenkov said.

Washington had impeded negotiations, did not separate terrorists and opposition and now openly called on other countries to hamper Moscow’s anti-terrorism fight in Syria “to somehow downplay the failures of US policies in the country since 2014”, the spokesman said.

Konashenkov said that the US-led coalition can only dream of a success comparable to the one Russia has achieved for a year: over 2,000 settlements have joined ceasefire, 86 armed groups have stopped fighting and hundreds of thousands of Syrians have returned to peaceful life to rebuild the country.

“So if you cannot or do not want to fight ISIL and al-Nusra Front — do not get in the way, at least. Our air group is Syria is sufficiently equipped to fight international terrorism in this region,” he said.