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Miliband: Syria truce has a good chance at least in the short term

September 13, 2016 at 4:09 am

David Miliband has said that the current ceasefire in the Syrian civil war has “a better short-term chance of a decent lull in the fighting than has ever happened before”.  The UK’s former foreign secretary, who now runs the International Rescue Committee (IRC) – an aid agency based in New York – told the BBC on Monday over the long term, the issue will become more “tricky”.

Miliband suggested that one of the potential major sticking points is that the US and Russia will need to set up a joint military command in order to target Daesh, an issue that may be complicated by the lack of trust between the two militaries and the different interests each has in the broader war.

However, according to the former minister, there are some signs of hope:

The degree of Russian engagement seems to be of a much greater order than of any of the previous cease-fire attempts.

Ultimately, however, Miliband acknowledged that an essential part of ending the war is the need to deal with embattled Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad

The great difficulty is going to come down to the future of President Assad, because obviously in the West he is perceived as someone who has not just murdered many of his own citizens but has radicalized those who are still there… On the Russia side they see him as the great hope. And there is nothing in this agreement that gets over that fundamental division,