The Kremlin comments on the arrest of Baghdadi
The Kremlin comments on the arrest of Baghdadi
2017-12-18 at 15:31 (Baghdad time)
Mawazine News – Follow up
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia has no information on the detention of the leader of the al-Qaeda organization, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in Iraq and his transfer to a US base in Syria, the Russian presidency said.
The spokesman for the Kremlin, Dmitry Piskov, told a news conference on Monday that he was commenting on reports published by the Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak, quoting “Syrian sources,” referring to the detention of al-Baghdadi in Iraq and his transfer to a US base in the Syrian province of Hasakah.
“I can not comment on the Turkish newspaper because I do not know the sources on which it depends,” he said.
In a press conference, Piskov touched on the telephone conversation held by Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday with his American counterpart Donald Trump, which dealt with thwarting a series of terrorist operations in the Russian city of St. Petersburg as well as intelligence provided by the American side to Moscow.
The spokesman for the Russian presidency, the CIA provided this intelligence to the Russian colleagues as “the ideal coordination in the fight against terrorism.”
The information obtained by Moscow from the United States has saved many lives, Biskov said, noting that this situation was probably the most successful in the cooperation between the two countries in this area.
The Kremlin spokesman responded to a question on whether Washington’s handover of this information to Moscow is an individual or intelligence coordination between them on a permanent basis, adding: “It can be said that the contacts between our intelligence services are going on intermittently … through the exchange of appropriate information.”
Putin and Trump did not discuss the possibility of a new personal meeting during their last telephone call (the second in the past four days), Beskov said.
In addition, Biskov discussed the issue of presidential elections due in March, saying Putin’s electoral campaign office has not yet been formed and the seat of the campaign leader is still vacant until now.
mawazin.net
