Rubio: If Damascus falls, Syria will become Iran’s playground

According to RCO News Agency, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has gone to Canada to participate in the Group of Seven meeting, appeared in the group of journalists and answered their questions.

Russians wa Donbass

Rubio, in response to a question about whether Washington’s assessme is that Russia does not wa peace? “I think they’ve made it clear what they wa, they wa the rest of Donetsk, and obviously the Ukrainians won’t agree to that,” he said.

The US Secretary of State added: Therefore, what we are seeing now is that they are coinuing long-range attacks on Ukraine, and they have also made gains in Donetsk. I mean, that’s the assessme we have to make.

Russia is trying to destroy the morale of the Ukrainian people

In response to the question of whether the United States has made a commitme to support Ukraine in the field of energy or other ways to help this coury?, he described helping Ukraine to pass the upcoming wier as importa from a humanitarian poi of view and said: We have had conversations with the Ukrainians about their needs and I know that these conversations are ongoing. The challenge is that Ukraine’s energy grid has decreased every year, and I think that now in Kyiv, more than 50-60% of the day is spe without electricity. There are hours of the day when there is no water and electricity. And this is clearly part of the Russian strategy, to try to destroy the morale of the people in Ukraine and the will to fight.

“That’s why we’ve been negotiating with them about defensive weapons to protect their power grid and about the specific equipme they need,” Rubio coinued. But ultimately, if that equipme ends up being destroyed a week after installation, it remains a problem. And this story has been going on for the past two or three years.

Relations with Russia are separate from the issue of Ukraine

He answered whether there are any negotiations going on now and before the expiration of the “New Start” agreeme in February. “No, there’s no active, open discussion about possibly talking to them about this, but we’re separating that from the whole Ukraine thing,” he noted. We communicate with the Russians every day on differe levels, maybe not at my level but whether it’s about the operations of our embassies, whether it’s about issues or things like you asked about New Start.

In response to the question of whether the United States will iervene in the European plan to use frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine, the US Secretary of State said: He clarified that this is a European issue and that the Treasury Secretary is working on the issue of frozen assets in the United States and Washington’s approach to that.

The EU cannot determine what iernational law is

He coinued his conversation with reporters about how Europeans in Canada talked about the legality of US attacks on boats in the Caribbean under the pretext of fighting drug trafficking and believe that there are two reasons why an operation can be legal: self-defense and the UN resolution; Neither of these apply to US military operations in the Caribbean, he said: “I don’t think the EU can determine what iernational law is, and what they certainly can’t determine is how the United States defends its national security.”

He claimed: The United States is under attack by organized drug terrorists and the preside is reacting in defense of our coury. The preside has made it abundaly clear that his job is to protect the United States from threats against the coury, and that’s what he’s doing in this operation.

Venezuela has no governme!

Rubio also claimed about the Venezuelan governme’s announceme that it will conduct a massive military mobilization in response to the US threat: “They don’t have a governme.” It is an illegitimate regime and basically a drug trafficking organization that has empowered itself. So, I usually don’t respond to what they say. But this is an ai-narcotics operation, and if they stop sending the drug boats, there will be no problem.

Coinuing his claims, he poied to the cooperation of the United States with other couries in the southern hemisphere, including Mexico, El Salvador, Ecuador, Guatemala and others, for what he called combating drug trafficking to the United States, and once again accused the Venezuelan governme of cooperating with traffickers.

We wa to give the rulers of Syria a chance

In another part of his speech, the US foreign minister said about the resumption of the Syrian embassy in the US and whether Washington also was to reopen its embassy in Damascus. He said: We wa to give these people (Syrian rulers) every chance to succeed. They have told us that they wa to create a Syrian national governme where every eleme of Syrian society is represeed and feels safe. They wa Syria to be a coury, not a launching pad for attacks against their neighbors.

He poied out that “if this does not happen and Syria falls, the other option will be for Syria to be involved in a civil war” and claimed: In this case, Syria will become the playground of almost every dangerous eleme in the Middle East, including the return of Iran, and it will even strengthen Hezbollah. So, we don’t wa to see that happen and this is the best option on the table to preve it from happening.

Some people have relatively radical ideas in Syria

Rubio added: “We hope that they will succeed, but no one can guaraee that they will succeed.” Their task is very difficult. Some of the elemes that helped the curre governme come to power and oust Assad are foreign fighters. Some of them who came and helped him are people who have fairly radical views, and not all of them are completely under the corol of the Damascus governme. There are problems with the Kurds in the north. There are problems with the Bedouins and Druze in the south. All these things must be balanced.

He claimed that if the curre governme of Syria falls, this coury will become a stateless space and a playground for ISIS, Hezbollah, Iran, Al-Qaeda and any other elemes in the region, and “we will have a completely new war in Syria.”

No part of Gaza should be under Hamas corol

The senior American diplomat also said about the Gaza Strip and the existence of a yellow line in this area, which, according to him, distinguishes between the parts of Gaza that are under the corol of Hamas and the parts that are not under the corol of Hamas, and claimed that ultimately no part of it should be under the corol of Hamas.

Coinuing his claims, he said: There must be a Palestinian civilian organization to govern Gaza, and the goal is to keep that organization standing, give it capacity, allow it to grow both in terms of ability and credibility, and ultimately govern Gaza. The Israelis do not wa to rule Gaza. We do not wa to rule Gaza. No coury in the Middle East was to rule Gaza. But creating this capability will take some time and in the meaime someone has to provide security.

There are concerns about the West Bank

In response to a question about the violence of the Zionist settlers in the West Bank, who always carry out this violence with impunity, and whether it can in any way and poteially, weaken or endanger some of the agreemes in Gaza? He stated: “I hope not, but there are certainly concerns about eves in the West Bank spreading and creating an impact that could undermine what we are doing in Gaza.” We do not expect this to happen. We will do our best to make sure this does not happen.

Rubio further poied to the rece statemes of some Zionist officials condemning the violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, which in no case has led to the perpetrators of the attacks being punished.

He claimed: Therefore, I think that the Israelis reacted today and actually se forces to respond to these attacks.

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