Press TVUS Secretary of State John Kerry has put off a visit to Israel this week to stay in Washington for the White House’s key meetings on Syria with the US close to deciding on arming the militants in the Arab country’s conflict.
A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Monday that America’s top diplomat would not take the trip this week as planned to attend meetings in Washington.”
Kerry had been due to arrive in Israel on Tuesday, according to Israel HaYom, a newspaper considered close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The debate in Washington would have telling significance in charting the Obama administration’s course on Syria as it weighs arming the militants now that the battlefield has tilted in favor of the Syrian forces.
Fredrick Hof, a former senior US official who worked on Syria policy and is now at a think tank, said on Monday that the White House may decide to provide the militants in Syria with weapons.
The desperate urge to finalize the US policy comes days after the Syrian troops, backed by Hezbollah forces, wrested the control of the town of Qusair, near the Lebanese border, and the villages in the strategic area from the militants.
The Syrian government is also preparing for a major offensive on areas in the northern city of Aleppo that are still under the control of the militants.
The Syrian army is now “deploying heavily in the countryside near Aleppo in preparation for a battle that will be fought inside the city and on its outskirts,” read an article in Syria’s al-Watan newspaper on Monday.
Israeli minister for international affairs, strategy and intelligence Yuval Steinitz said on Monday that the Syrian forces would probably gain the upper hand” in the fight against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
The Assad’s government “might not just survive but even regain territories” from the militants, Steinitz said.
In June 2011, only three months into the crisis in Syria, Israel’s then-Minister of Military Affairs Ehud Barak predicted that Assad would fall within weeks.”
MA/AS
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/06/10/308294/kerry-postpones-israel-visit-over-syria/