A senior Russian diplomat said today that the US threat to end all cooperation with Russia in the Syrian conflict represents an "emotional breakdown" and that Russia is ready to support a 48-hour ceasefire around Aleppo.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov rejected Washington's calls for a seven-day cessation of hostilities in Syria but said Russia was ready to support a 48-hour ceasefire for humanitarian reasons.
His statements followed the warning of US Secretary of State John Kerry that the US will end cooperation with Moscow if the Russian and Syrian attacks on Aleppo do not stop.
According to Russian news agencies, Ryabkov told the US after that statement that "a certain emotional breakdown happened".
Ryabkov also reiterated Russia's position that a seven-day ceasefire in the Aleppo offensive would give extremist fighters time to consolidate.
Ryabkov also called the US's statements about ending cooperation with Russia on Syria a policy of threats and blackmail aimed at imposing solutions favorable to the US and its clients.
"It is impossible to reach an agreement and stabilization on this basis. But you cannot force someone to love you. We have our own approaches and our own principles," the Russian official emphasized, reports Sputnik.
Ryabkov says the US is causing further damage to bilateral relations with Russia by calling into question the agreements on Syria.
"After numerous failures in their obligations under the treaty, which are now almost completely known, the Americans are starting to present things as if the Syrian side and we are acting in such a way that the question of further cooperation and joint work is raised," he pointed out.
According to him, "this is in line with the direction of imposing unilateral approaches, which was never acceptable to us".
The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia emphasized that "there is no and cannot be any concern about the situation in Aleppo, the humanitarian problems of the population and the tragedies that happen every day. It's all pure politics and geopolitics," he concluded.
Meanwhile, the spokeswoman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Maria Zakharova, commented on the words of the official representative of the US State Department, John Kirby, who stated that terrorist attacks could occur in Russian cities if the civil war in Syria is not stopped.
Kirby said this after Washington threatened to end cooperation with Russia on Syria.
In a comment on her Facebook page, Zakharova says that Kirby's words are more like the command "Attack!" but to the diplomat's comment.
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