‘Terrorists Facing Endgame’: Are Turkey & West Looking for Pretext to Start Ground Op Against Assad?

• ‘Terrorists Facing Endgame’: Are Turkey & West Looking for Pretext to Start Ground Op Against Assad?
  by https://www.rt.com/  , 14 Feb 2016
  As Syrian anti-Assad militants are getting desperate amid Damascus’ Russia-backed advance, world powers that want regime change in Syria are looking for ways to avert their defeat, Jim Jatras, former US diplomat and GOP Senate policy adviser told RT.
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  Despite the latest agreement of world powers in Munich, Germany on bringing an end to hostilities in Syria, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are apparently preparing to step up their military activity in the region, as US Secretary of State John Kerry is yet again pushing for Syrian President Bashar Assad to go as a precondition for political transition. RT asked Jatras to comment on what is being played out there.
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  RT: Why is Kerry saying Assad must go so soon after the Munich agreement, because during that deal it was stressed the need for all parties, including Assad, to talk?
  Jim Jatras: Well he certainly doesn’t have any basis to say the vast majority of the Syrian people want Assad to go. Certainly, there’s a very large percentage of the Syrian people, perhaps a majority, who definitely want Assad to stay, if the alternative is some sort of Sharia-ruled sectarian Sunni state. As far as what he’s saying still, that Assad must go – he’s got a lot of pressure from our so-called allies in the region, particularly the Saudis, the Turks, and the Gulf states, for whom removal of Assad and regime change remain their only real interest in this fight. And frankly, they’re getting desperate. They see the advances being made by the Syrian army with Russian air support, and they see that the terrorists are facing what could be endgame, and they’re trying to find some way to pull a rabbit out of the hat.
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