With the Syrian ceasefire set to take effect on Saturday, journalist Steven Sahiounie tells Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear about the situation on the ground, and describes Syrians’ hesitations about the United States’ true intentions. "There is hope, but on one condition: that the American government and their allies put pressure on Saudi Arabia and Turkey to stop their militants on the [...]

Moscow is not discussing alternative plans for a political settlement in Syria, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov has said. The Russian-American peace initiative is going to be formalized through a UN Security Council resolution. “We’re perplexed by our Western partners, the US included, mentioning the existence of some kind of ‘Plan B,’ Nothing is known on that one, we are consi [...]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has held phone talks on the ceasefire plan brokered by Moscow and Washington with the Syrian president and Saudi king, as well the leaders of Israel and Iran. Vladimir Putin and Bashar Assad held a phone conversation on Wednesday and “discussed various aspects of the Syrian crisis in the light of realization of the Russian-American declaration on cessation of [...]

The US media coverage of the Syrian war is completely divorced from reality, award-winning American author and foreign correspondent Stephen Kinzer writes, adding that much of the US press is reporting the opposite of what is actually happening on the ground. Americans have almost no real information about what is going on in Syria, and much of the blame for this lies with US mainstream media, [...]

US State Department spokesperson John Kirby said that the United States encourages opposition groups in Syria to take part in ceasefire agreed on under US-Russia deal on Monday. The United States encourages opposition groups in Syria to take part in ceasefire agreed on under US-Russia deal on Monday, US State Department spokesperson John Kirby said in a press release. [...]

While terrorists rage in Syria and beyond, with many countries trying to unite their efforts in the fight against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), Ankara's blame game looks more like an untimely joke, Moscow says. "Mr. Davutoglu [Turkish Prime Minister], are you serious or is it just the way you joke? [...]

The Syrian ceasefire accords, signed in Munich, have laid bare the impotence of Washington regarding the ongoing civil war, and have proved that resolving the almost five-year conflict depends on Russian interests in the region, international affairs observer Marc Champion wrote, in an opinion column for Bloomberg View. [...]

Turkey's Erdogan should come to terms with the "stark reality" that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will not fall anytime soon, former senior CIA official Graham E. Fuller notes, stressing that Erdogan's personal interests are not synonymous with Turkey’s national interests. Ankara is faced with the dilemma of choosing between pursuing its present foreign policy and returning to the more pea [...]

A part of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) will not participate in the ceasefire deal unless al-Nusra Front is involved, a commander of Ahrar ash-Sham militants said Tuesday. On Monday, Russia and the United States announced an agreement on cessation of hostilities between the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad and the armed opposition factions had been reached. The agreement will come into [...]

By adopting terms for a cessation of hostilities together with Russia, the US showed Turkey it is not going to support Ankara’s efforts to send troops into Syria and NATO won’t come to rescue them later, former US diplomat Jim Jatras told RT. How confident can we be that this new agreement will hold?   [...]

Further proof of ties between the Turkish military and Islamic State fighters operating on the Syrian-Turkish border has been revealed in the Cumhuriyet newspaper, which published more transcripts of telephone calls between the jihadists and officers. The documents are said to come from an ongoing court case on Islamic State at the Ankara 3rd High Criminal Court. [...]

The Syrian government has accepted the terms of a ceasefire deal announced by the US and Russia, a foreign ministry source said, as cited by Sana news agency. But Damascus wants the fight against terrorists such as Islamic State to continue. [...]

The deployment of Russia's super-maneuverable multirole Su-35S fighter jets in Syria immediately grabbed global headlines, which touted the warplane as "one of the world's most dangerous fighters." Russia's deployment of four state-of-the-art Su-35S fighter jets to Syria swiftly hit international headlines, [...]

A spate of atrocities over the past week suggests that the Erdogan regime in Turkey is desperately trying to goad Washington into a wider Syrian war. Who’s giving the orders here? The evidence points to Washington losing control over its regional underlings. That in turn makes the situation all the more volatile and dangerous. [...]

Former European Union and US Agency for International Development (USAID) advisor Paolo von Schirach said that the agreement between the United States and Russia to effect cessation of hostilities in Syria confirms that Moscow has emerged as the real power there. [...]

Perhaps proving Egypt is “ruled by lunatics,” as the child’s defense lawyer put it, a four-year-old boy has been sentenced to life in prison on multiple counts of murder for crimes allegedly committed when he was just two years old.   [...]

While Russia has presented a draft resolution to the United Nations asking all parties to respect Syria’s right to sovereignty, the United States and France have criticized the move as a mere distraction. This is unsurprising given that the US and France are both currently violating Syria’s sovereignty. [...]

The risk that the multi-sided Syrian war could spark World War III continues as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and U.S. neocons seek an invasion that could kill Russian troops — and possibly escalate the Syrian crisis into a nuclear showdown, amazingly to protect Al Qaeda terrorists, reports Robert Parry. When President Barack Obama took questions from reporters on Tuesday, [...]

President Obama has a bee in his bonnet about Putin and he keeps denying the reality, Professor Stephen F. Cohen, who wrote The Nation article ‘The Obama administration recklessly escalates confrontation with Russia’, told RT’s Ed Schultz. [...]