US President Barack Obama during the United Nations General Assembly (VEJA.com/AFP)
The US president, Barack Obama said on Tuesday that the jihadist group Islamic State (EI) can not be defeated in Syria if Bashar Assad Syrian dictator does not leave power, divergence point with Russia and Iran. "In Syria, defeat the EI requires, I believe, a new leader, "Obama said during a summit on combating EI and violent extremism, convened by the United States at the United Nations (UN). "This will be a complex process, and we are prepared to work with all countries, including Russia and Iran, to find a political solution," he added.
Obama met yesterday at the UN with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and both ratified their differences on the role of Assad in the future of Syria. While the Americans demand a new leader to ensure a political transition, the Russians defend the "legitimate government" of the dictator. Faced with over one hundred countries gathered at the summit on EI, Obama said that the jihadists "will eventually lose because they have nothing to offer but violence and death."
Obama said the international coalition led by the US and with over 60 countries, was able to demonstrate that EI can be defeated on the battlefield. "They lost almost a third of the populated areas of Iraq that had controlled. In Syria, were expelled from almost the entire region on the border with Turkey," Obama said. The Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon said that the United Nations can support the fight against EI by "a special effort to reach out to young people, to build institutions that truly accountable and ensuring that respect for law and human rights are non-negotiable. "
Cuba - After the summit on combating terrorism, Obama had a meeting also at the headquarters at the UN, with the Cuban Raul Castro. The dictator asked the US leader to use the position of the executive branch that takes to reduce the embargo against the island for further progress in the normalization of relations between Cuba and the US process. "There will be no normalization with lock, and there will be substantial progress in the standardization process without substantial changes in application of the blockade," Castro said, according to the words of Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez.
The foreign minister recalled that the president has "broad executive powers that would enable substantially modify many lock application elements." He said so far Obama's actions in this regard "had no significant effect, and their scope and depth were limitadíssimos". Since the announcement in December of the beginning of the normalization of diplomatic relations process, Obama asked unsuccessfully to the US Congress, now controlled by the Republican opposition, the end of the economic embargo imposed on Cuba for over half a century.
(From the Newsroom)
