Dr. Jonathan Spyer, Middle East expert and Executive Director of the Middle East Centre for Reporting and Analysis (MECRA) and columnist at The Jerusalem Post briefed journalists on the current situation in the Middle East this week in Sydney as part of an AIJAC-sponsored visit of Australia and New Zealand.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called on America to end its attempt to remove Syria’s President Assad from power in return for Russia’s co-operation to militarily confront Islamic State.
The swift agreement between Russia and America to collect and destroy Syria's chemical weapons has been an impressive diplomatic achievement - marred only by the fact that it has taken three weeks longer to reach this point because of their joint failure to focus on ending the use of chemical weapons in Syria - rather than focusing on who was responsible for the atrocity that caused the deaths of 1429 Syrians on 21 August.
