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A centerpiece of the forthcoming Helsinki Summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will be the future of Syria and a proposal to make Russia a partner to chase Iran out of this battlefield. In an appearance on CBS News' "Face the Nation" John Bolton, National Security Advisor, stated that the July 16 meeting would be "just the two" and would offer the opportunity to discuss long Syria, Bolton also reported that abandoned his rhetorical opposition to dictator Bashar al-Assad who maintained power in Syria through a mixture of brutal tactics such as chemical weapons ] and the firepower of Russian and Iranian forces, including Hezbollah.
"I do not think Assad is the strategic issue, I think Iran is the strategic issue," Bolton said. Two Arab diplomats and a senior US official told CBS News that the administration has now agreed that Assad will remain in power in the immediate future and has decided to focus on Putin's conviction of breaking ties with his partner on the Iranian battlefield
The possibilities of conducting a broader negotiation to help get Iranian forces out of Syria and back to Iran would be a significant step forward, "Bolton told Face the Nation. .
A senior US official told CBS News that with Putin includes an individual meeting with Mr. Trump, which has raised concerns among some US officials regarding the concessions that can be made when both are in the room together. When CBS News asked him how many translators would be in the room or whether Bolton would join the meeting at some point, a spokesman for the National Security Council said that there was no details to announce.
"Nobody knows what Trump will do with Putin," said the senior official, "This concerns just about every issue."
Several members of the president's national security team had warned against meeting Putin after what should be a tense summit with NATO partners the week before European officials told CBS News that the optics of a bad meeting with the US allies followed a warm summit with Putin would only allow Russia to exploit the flaws of this alliance.The US officials are also concerned that this will increase the risk of cutting a bad deal with Putin in Syria.
It is not clear that Russia has the power or the ability to repel Iran, which was the main patron of Assad ., now in its seventh year. United States have their own influence through a limited military presence of about 2,000 troops on the ground in Syria to help local forces in the fight against ISIL. However, President Trump said that he did not want to keep these troops in Syria.
While his national security team has urged him to maintain the presence of US troops, some US national security officials fear that the president may want to involve them in the negotiations with Putin. An Arab diplomat told CBS News that Russia specifically wanted the United States to abandon its base of operations in Al Tanf, Syria.
According to an article in The Wall Street Journal, Bolton personally objected to the partial abandonment of Al Tanf 's presence because she was in the middle of the year. a road that Iran would like to use to deliver weapons and supplies to Hezbollah in Lebanon. . It is not clear that President Trump himself is pronouncing on the issue.
The potential agreement in Syria is justified by an anti-terrorist mission that is a priority for President Trump.
"I think the Russians always tell us that they want to cooperate on international terrorism," Bolton said, pointing to Iran as one of the main proponents of the project [19659012]. just when Putin was violating the 2017 agreement that he had personally negotiated with Trump to stop the attacks inside a so-called de-escalation area in southern Syria [19659002] The Trump administration decided to take no military action to stop the Russian assault on the area that originally served as a haven for refugees and former rebels backed by the United States. Jordan, which is already home to 1.3 million Syrian refugees, and neighboring Israel have both closed their borders to refugees fleeing violence.
Asked that the breach of this agreement should prevent the United States from negotiating a new one, Bolton channeled the trumpet language, saying, "Well, we'll see what happens when the two are meeting. "
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