Putin is fanning Syrian civil war, Britain's Hammond says
Russian President Vladimir Putin is undermining international efforts to end the Syrian civil war by bombing opponents of Islamic State in an attempt to bolster Bashar al-Assad, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said on Monday.
In a clear sign of frustration with the Kremlin, Hammond scolded Putin for paying lip service to a political process aimed at ending the civil war while also bombing opponents of Assad who the West hopes could shape Syria once Assad is gone.
"It's a source of constant grief to me that everything we are doing is being undermined by the Russians," Hammond told Reuters at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, about 10 km (six miles) south of the border with Syria.
