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Russia wants US to live up to promise to separate moderate opposition from terrorists

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and German Bundestag deputy Wolfgang Gehrcke met on Friday and discussed the situation in Syria

MOSCOW, October 28 /TASS/. Russia believes that the United States should live up to its promise to separate moderate opposition units from terrorist groups in order to improve the situation in Syria's Aleppo, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday after a meeting between Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, who is the Russian president’s envoy for the Middle East and Africa, and Wolfgang Gehrcke, a German Bundestag (parliament) deputy, a member of the parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs and the head of the working group for foreign affairs and international relations of the Left Party faction in the German parliament.

"The sides had a meaningful discussion of urgent aspects of the situation in the Middle East and North Africa that focused on the political settlement in Syria and problems related to fighting international terrorism," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

"Special attention was paid to the humanitarian situation, which is emerging in Aleppo in the context of international efforts to alleviate the suffering of the peaceful Syrian population. In this connection, the Russian side stressed the unconditional need of the US implementation of its commitment to separate ‘moderate’ opposition units from terrorist groups operating in the eastern part of the city," the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed.

Earlier on Friday, the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva published a comment on the implementation of the Russia-US agreements on Syria.

"The conducted analysis clearly shows that Russia has responsibly fulfilled all of its obligations within the agreements in a timely manner," the comment said.

"The US, on the other hand, was not capable to insure the implementation of the CoH (cessation of hostilities) by the armed groups. Furthermore, the US failed to fulfill its February promise to separate Al-Nusra Front from 'moderate' opposition," the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva said adding that Washington failed to ensure full-fledged information exchange on CoH violations.