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Boris Johnson urges West to work with 'tyrant' Vladimir Putin over Isis

Mayor of London appears to cast doubt on Mr Cameron’s claims that there were 70,000 moderate rebels ready to act as ground troops against Isis

Ian Johnston
Monday 07 December 2015 01:24 GMT
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Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson has called for the West to cut a deal with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin – despite describing the latter as a “ruthless and manipulative tyrant” – in order to destroy Isis.

The Tory MP and mayor of London – a leading contender to replace David Cameron as Prime Minister when he stands down before the next election – argued that the priority was to drive the “evil death cult” from the territory it controls in Syria and Iraq.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Mr Johnson said: “Innocent lives are being lost now: tens of thousands of people butchered just because they are women, or disabled, or gay, or because they belong to the wrong strand of Islam.

“I don’t want to have them on my conscience, and I don’t want these sickos from Daesh/Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) to continue to exult in their so-called caliphate, and to be allowed indefinitely to promote their terrorist campaigns.”

To do defeat Isis, it would be necessary to work with Mr Assad, despite claims he has killed up to a million of his own people, and with Mr Putin, he wrote.

He appeared to cast doubt on Mr Cameron’s claims that there were 70,000 moderate rebels ready to act as ground troops against Isis.

“We need someone to provide the boots on the ground; and given that we are not going to be providing British ground forces – and the French and the Americans are just as reluctant – we cannot afford to be picky about our allies,” Mr Johnson said.

“We have the estimated 70,000 of the Free Syrian Army (and many other groups and grouplets); but those numbers may be exaggerated, and they may include some jihadists who are not ideologically very different from al-Qaeda.

“Who else is there? The answer is obvious. There is Assad, and his army; and the recent signs are that they are making some progress. Thanks at least partly to Russian air strikes, it looks as if the regime is taking back large parts of Homs.”

He said he was “no particular fan” of Mr Putin.

“Russian-backed forces are illegally occupying parts of Ukraine. Putin’s proxy army was almost certainly guilty of killing the passengers on the Malaysia Airlines jet that came down in eastern Ukraine,” Mr Johnson wrote.

“He has questions to answer about the death of Alexander Litvinenko, pitilessly poisoned in a London restaurant … Despite looking a bit like Dobby the House Elf, he is a ruthless and manipulative tyrant.”

But he recalled Sir Winston Churchill’s remark, when Hitler’s forces invaded the Soviet Union during World War II, about making “a favourable reference to the Devil” if the German dictator attacked Hell.

Mr Johnson said he hoped the Assad regime was close to retaking the Syrian city of Palmyra with Russian help and he hoped they succeeded.

“That does not mean I trust Putin, and it does not mean that I want to keep Assad in power indefinitely. But we cannot suck and blow at once,” he added.

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