Russia: Not sure if Syria will remain one country

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said today that Moscow did not know how the situation in Syria would evolve in terms of the country maintaining its territorial integrity, the Interfax news agency reported.

“We don’t know how the situation is going to develop on the question of whether it is possible to keep Syria as a single country,” the agency quoted Ryabkov as telling Germany’s Deutsche Welle broadcaster.

This comes days after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Ankara to discuss the unrest in Syria. The parties pledged to support the “territorial integrity” of Syria, find a diplomatic end to the war, and to begin a reconstruction of a Syria devastated by seven years of war.

Russia has been supporting Syrian Preisdent Bashar Al-Assad regain control of territoty he lost to opposition groups since the start of the civil war. With help from Moscow, Assad’s forces have been able to reclaim large swaths of the country. However in the north of the country American backed Kurdish forces are fighting Daesh in the hope of securing their own autonomous state.

Russia, meanwhile, has extended its grip on Syria, building military basis on the Mediterranean Sea and ensure it has a gateway in the Middle East.

Read: Russia’s Putin predicts global ‘chaos’ if West hits Syria again