President Obama will reach out to Russian President Putin to discuss Moscow’s plan to open in air base in Syria to help that country’s leader remain in power, but only “when it would advance our interests” a White House spokesman said Tuesday.
The Pentagon early Tuesday said Russia is setting up an air base in Syria, although fighter jets or helicopters have yet to arrive. Over the weekend, Moscow started sending Russian troops and military equipment to Syria to shore up Syrian leader Bashar Assad’s grip on power.
Presidential press secretary Josh Earnest previously said Obama would call Putin at some point to discuss Russia’s escalation in Syria. But when asked Tuesday when that call might occur, Earnest said President Obama would determine the timing.
“When our team, and most importantly the president, has determined when it would advance our interests to have a conversation with Putin, he will make that call,” Earnest said.
Assad, Earnest said, has lost legitimacy to lead the country and the solution in Syria requires a diplomatic strategy. He said the U.S. has “worked hard to support U.N. efforts to facilitate a democratic transition inside Syria.”
“But those efforts haven’t gained nearly as much traction as we’d like,” Earnest acknowledged. He said the U.S. would prefer to see the Russians make a concrete commitment to participate in the 60-country coalition to defeat the Islamic State.
“Continuing to support Assad is destabilizing and counterproductive,” he said.
Earnest also said Assad is continuing to lose territory and that’s why Obama believes Russia’s “doubling down on Assad is a losing bet.”
Earnest didn’t rule out a meeting between Obama and Putin on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York later this month. Both leaders are scheduled to speak at the U.N. headquarters Sept. 28.
“The president’s schedule for his trip to New York is still in flux,” Earnest said. “We’ll have more to say once that schedule is finalized…Certainly, there is a possibility that the two leaders could meet while they are there.”
A Kremlin spokesman earlier Tuesday also said a meeting between Putin and Obama is possible during the annual U.N. meeting.
“We have always said that we do not exclude any sort of dialogue and believe that dialogue is a needed instrument to express each other’s positions and find consensus and understanding,” Putin’s spokesman told reporters.
