Berlin Shows Double Standards in Dealing with Mosul and Aleppo: Moscow

MOSCOW- Berlin demonstrates double standards by comparing the situation in Iraq’s Mosul and Syria’s Aleppo, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday commenting on the recent statements by German politicians and diplomats about the situation in the northern Iraqi city.

“We are puzzled and surprised by attempts to describe as ‘surgically precise’ the campaign to retake Mosul, carried out with support from the US-led anti-IS coalition. They sound cynical against the background of numerous civilian deaths and large-scale destruction of civil infrastructure caused by the ‘targeted’ air strikes,” the ministry said in a statement, according to Itar Tass.

 Moscow dismisses as baseless West’s attempts to “embellish the humanitarian situation in Mosul and hush up the true scope of destruction.” About 250,000 people had to flee the area of the hostilities and had to survive “in most extreme conditions possible,” the ministry said.

“Against this background, German officials have on many occasions attempted to compare the situation in Mosul and the events in Syria’s Aleppo in line with the West’s propaganda campaign. They speculated about the cruelty of the operation in eastern Aleppo that cannot match that of Mosul. However, it did not look convincing,” it said.

It appears that the officials “in Berlin, like in many other Western capitals, continue to stick to their usual rhetoric and double standards,” the statement reads.

H.M