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Russia supplies Iraq with attack helicopters

6-19-13 Interfax Russian news agency mentioned on Tuesday, that its country will provide Iraq with military attack helicopters type “Ka-52″ Alligator

, noting that the deal has been done according to the contract signed last year, the value of the contract excessive four billion $ for the supply of military equipment to Iraq.

“Russia will supply Iraq with Ka-52 Alligator helicopters, model Mi-28NE”, indicating that “Air show” Le Bourget “has concluded an export contract to supply Iraq with those helicopters,” The agency said in a news briefed by “Shafaq News”.

“An agreement was signed to supply Iraq with military equipment worth 4.3 billion $ between the Russia and Iraqi parties in 2012 thanks to Le Bourget that signed on the contract officially and the agreement was entered into force “.
Iraq has signed deals to buy weapons worth 4.2 billion $ with Russia during the Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s visit last year, according to Russian media.

Russian reports said that the deal includes MiG-29 aircraft, 30 attack helicopters Mi -28, 42 Pantsir – S 1 which are land – air missile systems
Some Kurdish leaders concern that the arms contracts concluded by Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki with both Russia and Czech.

They warned on more than one occasion from the escalation and dangerous consequences, and called for the federal government to clarify the mechanisms of contracts, its timing and arming Peshmarga forces.

It is noteworthy that the Iraqi government is seeking to arm the Iraqi army of all its kinds,as it has contracted with a number of global manufacturers to buy modern weapons, including the United States Army to equip the army.

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Dinar Daddy’s Tidbits

Russia Scientists To Clone Stalingrad’s Oldest Living Survivor

It survived one of World War II’s bloodiest battles, in which some 2 million people are thought to have perished. 

Although it was often pummeled by machine-gun fire and shrapnel, it stood firm as fierce fighting in Stalingrad raged around it for 200 days.

It’s little wonder, therefore,that the gnarled,100-year-old poplar, which still stands in Volgograd (as Stalingrad is now known), has a special place in the hearts of the city’s denizens. 

The tree has been protected by the local council since 1993 and a special plaque at its base reminds passersby that the hoary old poplar “lived through the great battle.” 

Now, however, despite withstanding everything that Nazi Germany could throw at it, the tree seems set to finally succumb to the vicissitudes of old age. 

As poplars usually only survive an average of 80 years, this centenarian is living on borrowed time.

Consequently, moves are afoot to clone the tree so that its legacy can be kept alive. 

“In order to preserve the idea of continuity between generations, we have decided to use this tree’s genetic material to reproduce it,” a spokesperson for Volgograd’s environmental authority told the RIA Novosti news agency on June 18. 

Scientists have already taken 10 samples from the tree and they hope to plant the first cloned saplings in downtown Volgograd by 2014.

In this way, it is hoped that this living reminder of the city’s resilience and fortitude can be preserved for decades to come.

PHOTO GALLERY: The Battle of Stalingrad in pictures

  • A massive German aerial bombardment of Stalingrad at the start of the battle in August 1942 left much of the city in ruins.

  • Stalingrad’s main railway station in late 1942

  • Laying waste to Stalingrad ultimately failed to help the Germans take the city, however, as they soon got bogged down in morale-sapping street battles amid the ruined buildings.

  • Street combat, October 1942

  • Soviet soldiers during a street fight in Stalingrad, September 1942

  • The battlefield dead, November 8, 1942

  • A Russian nurse bandages a wounded soldier during a street skirmish in Stalingrad. Female medics and orderlies were often in the thick of battle during the siege.

  • Comissar Nikita Khruschev (left) discusses tactics with General Andrei Yeryomenko (second left), commander of the Red Army’s Southeas [Stalingrad] Front and other officers.

  • The Red Army’s simple but devastatingly effective Katyusha rockets were much feared by German troops and helped damage their morale.

  • A downed German fighter lies amid the ruins of Stalingrad. Huge air battles were waged over the city during the course of the siege.

  • The brutal battle conditions were exacerbated by the harsh Russian winter.

  • Soviet forces eventually encircled the Germans at Stalingrad, thus sealing the fate of Hitler’s Sixth Army.

  • Many Germans preferred to fight to the bitter end rather than surrender to Soviet forces.

  • Soviet officers pass by German prisoners of war as the battle enters its endgame in Januay 1943.

  • With supplies running out, most Germans were in an exhausted and emaciated condition by the time the fighting ended.

  • Out of the nearly 110,000 German prisoners captured at Stalingrad, only about 6,000 ever returned to Germany.

  • Columns of Nazi German Wehrmacht soldiers pass through the streets of Stalingrad on February 1, 1943.

  • A Soviet soldier victoriously hoists a flag over Stalingrad in February 1943.

  • The center of Stalingrad after liberation, February 2, 1943

– Coilin O’Connor
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Russia And U.S. To Sign New Nuclear Deal

U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin will sign a new agreement on securing and destroying nuclear material to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

The two leaders made the announcement after talks on the sidelines of a G8 summit in Northern Ireland on June 17.

The new agreement will replace a 1992 deal that expired on Monday.

Obama hailed the agreement as a sign of the “kind of constructive, cooperative relationship” that moves the United States and Russia “out of a Cold War mindset.”

Ben Rhodes, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said Russia had been reluctant to extend the agreement. Rhodes noted the previous deal had taken a “very aggressive and intrusive” approach to securing nuclear material in Russia.

The previous agreement was signed after the collapse of the Soviet Union and was known as the Nunn-Lugar agreement after former Democratic Senator Sam Nunn and former Republican Senator Richard Lugar.

On June 17, Nunn applauded the new deal, although he noted that some parts of the old one focused on chemical and biological weapons would not continue.

“We must find ways beyond this agreement to work together on these critical issues,” he said. “I believe that we will.”

Based on Reuters and Itar-tass reporting

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Syria and Russia Warn West Against Aiding Rebels

ENNISKILLEN, Northern Ireland — With the crisis in Syria dominating a meeting of the G8 nations, talks were due Monday night to press Russia to overcome its deep differences with other industrialized nations and agree a series of principles over how to achieve a transition from the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

A British official, speaking on condition of anonymity per diplomatic protocol, said the hopes were for a discussion, to take place over dinner, that would be a “clarifying moment,” revealing whether Russia would be prepared to join — or stand aside from — a summit communiqué by the other seven nations.

The Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin,has supported Mr. Assad and warned against American plans to begin sending some arms to rebels there.

Ahead of the dinner, President Barack Obama was to meet with Mr. Putin and to try to persuade him to put pressure on Mr. Assad to negotiate a transition.

Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, who has pushed hard for help for the Syrian opposition but has not agreed to help arm them, is leading the talks, which are taking place in a golfing resort in Northern Ireland.

The five principles due to be discussed over dinner are provision of humanitarian assistance; moves to combat extremist elements; a declaration that the use of chemical weapons is unacceptable; preparations for stabilization after a change of government; and discussion over a transition to a new executive authority in Syria.

The discussions avoid the contentious issue of arming Syria’s rebels — which divides Europeans — and an agreement could form the basis of a peace talks that international leaders have been trying to arrange. British officials hope that Mr. Assad could be persuaded to send a representative to those discussions, paving the way for him to eventually relinquish power.

Monday night’s talks were due to take place in a lakeside lodge with few officials present, over a meal of crab, prawn and avocado salad, roast beef and apple crumble.

The two-day summit meeting, which ends Tuesday, is also expected to discuss moves to clamp down on tax evasion and tax avoidance by multinational corporations. Britain is also seeking an agreement on preventing ransom payments in kidnappings, which it believes is now the major source of terrorist funding.

Well before the start of Monday’s G8 summit meeting, divisions were on display over Syria. Mr. Cameron conceded that he found some elements of the Syrian opposition worrying but sought to keep open the option of arming those who want a democratic future.

Speaking on Monday in Northern Ireland, Mr. Cameron, who faces internal opposition within his coalition government to arming the rebels, said he had made no decision on the issue.

“I am as worried as anyone else about elements of the Syrian opposition who are extremists, who support terrorism, who are a great danger to our world” Mr. Cameron said. “The question is what do we do about that?”

“My argument is that we shouldn’t accept that the only alternative to Assad is terrorism and violence,” Mr. Cameron said. “We should be on the side of Syrians who want a democratic and peaceful future for their country and one without the man who is currently using chemical weapons against them.”

After a meeting in London on Sunday with the prime minister, Mr. Putin responded in combative style after being asked if he had blood on his hands for providing military support to the Assad government.

“One hardly should back those who kill their enemies and, you know, eat their organs,” he said, referring to a widely publicized video in which a member of an anti-Assad militia appears to bite an internal organ from a dead government soldier.

“Do we want to support these people?” Mr. Putin asked. “Do we want to supply arms to these people?”

The United States has said that it will supply some rebels with direct military aid, and Britain and France succeeded in getting the European Union to allow its ban on supplying arms to the country to expire, despite the reservations of many countries within the 27-member bloc.

On Monday, Britain’s foreign secretary, William Hague, told the BBC that there was no “palatable option” for dealing with the crisis in Syria and that “extremists” were supporting both Mr. Assad’s government and the rebel forces. The help would go to “moderates,” he said.

By Stephen Castle
New York Times

Rick Gladstone contributed reporting from New York.

Assyrian International News Agency

Cameron Says Russia And Britain Can Bridge Differences

U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron has said that Russia and Britain can overcome their diverging views on the conflict in Syria despite big differences.

“There’s no secret that President Putin and I have had our disagreements on some of these [Syrian] issues,” Cameron said at a short news conference on June 16 after meeting President Vladimir Putin in London. “But what I take from our conversation today is that we can overcome these differences if we recognize that we share some fundamental aims — to end the conflict, to stop Syria breaking apart, to let the Syrian people choose who governs them, and to take the fight to the extremists and defeat them.”

Putin and Cameron met ahead of a summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations which starts on June 17 near Lough Erne in Northern Ireland. 

The meeting came after the United States said it found proof that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons, and that Washington is now ready to start providing weapons to the rebels.

Moscow is backing and arming the government of President Bashar al-Assad, while Britain supports the Syrian rebels and is seeking to arm them.

Putin told the news conference that Russia’s arms deliveries to Syria were in compliance with the international law. Putin questioned the West’s decision to arm the rebels, who he said were eating human flesh in front of the cameras. But he added that both sides in the conflict had children’s blood on their hands.

Nonetheless, Putin maintained that the idea of an international forum on Syria was still alive.

The United States and Russia have launched a joint initiative to bring together the Syrian regime and opposition for settlement talks, but no date for a conference has been set.

Cameron told reporters that he and Putin have agreed to push for larger international support for such a conference at the upcoming G8 summit.

“We agreed that the G8 must back the work of Secretary [Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov, [and U.S.] Secretary [of State John] Kerry, to bring Syrians into a new peace process,” he said. “And we will use the opportunity of having G8 leaders together to try to build on this common ground.”

Military Airport Near Damascus Targeted

In related news, a large explosion struck near a military airport near the Syrian capital Damascus late on June 16.

State TV and activists said the car bomb exploded at a road block near the Mezze military airport.

State controlled al-Ikhbariya Television said the explosion “resulted from an attempt to target the Mezze military airport.”

Activists said Assad’s forces cut off roads leading to the airport following the blast.  There was no word of casualties.

The compound is manned by Republican Guards, Special Forces and Airforce Intelligence.

It serves as a private airport for the Assad family. Since the uprising, it has been used as an artillery and rocket base to target rebellious Sunni Muslim neighborhoods on the edge of the capital.

The United Nations said on June 17 that the overall death toll in the Syrian civil war has reached nearly 93,000, with civilians bearing the brunt of the attacks.

With reporting by Reuters, Interfax, and AFP

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Podcast: Who Won Russia Day?

Both supporters and opponents of President Vladimir Putin mobilized their forces on the Russia Day national holiday this week.

One front gathered in Moscow’s ornate Manezh, just across from the Kremlin. In a tightly choreographed affair, they chanted “Russia! Russia!” and “Putin! Putin!” Another took to the streets, marching through the center of the capital chanting “Russia without Putin.”

This week’s edition of the Power Vertical podcast takes a look at Putin’s All-Russian Popular Front, which held its founding congress on June 12, and the 10,000-strong opposition protest that took place the same day. How did these dueling attempts by the regime and the opposition to respectively re-legitimize themselves before a weary public fare?

Joining me are co-hosts Mark Galeotti of New York University, Kirill Kobrin of RFE/RL’s Russian Service, and Sean Guillory or the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies. 

Also on the podcast, we discuss oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov’s decision not to run for Moscow mayor — and anticorruption blogger Aleksei Navalny’s struggle to enter that race.

Enjoy…

The Power Vertical Podcast: Who Won Russia Day?

Listen to or download the podcast above or subscribe to “The Power Vertical Podcast” on iTunes.
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Syria and Russia slam US over weapons charge

Syria and Russia have both slammed US allegations that Syrian government forces have used chemical weapons against opposition fighters in the country’s civil war, with the Syrian government terming the charge “full of lies”.

The commander of the main rebel umbrella group has welcomed the US move, saying that it would lift his fighters’ morale.

President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, said the US president was planning to step up military assistance to Syrian rebels, as a response to intelligence estimates indicating the use of chemical weapons in the conflict.

“The White House has issued a statement full of lies about the use of chemical weapons in Syria, based on fabricated information,” a statement issued on Friday by the Syrian Foreign Ministry said.

“The United States is using cheap tactics to justify President Barack Obama’s decision to arm the Syrian opposition,” it said.

The statement also accused the US of “double standards”, by combatting terrorism while providing support for “terrorist” groups in Syria, such as Jabhat al-Nusra, with arms and money. The group, also known as the Nusra Front, is an al-Qaeda affiliate that has emerged as one of the most effective rebel factions in Syria.

Russia, a staunch ally of the Syrian government, also disputed the US charge on Friday.

President Vladimir Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters that the information provided by US officials to Russia “didn’t look convincing”.

Asked if Russia could retaliate to the US move to supply weapons to the Syrian rebels by delivering the S-300 air defence missile systems to the regime, Ushakov said “there is no talk about it yet”.

“We aren’t competing over Syria, we are trying to settle the issue in a constructive way,” he said.

On Friday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that “the validity of any information on the allege use of chemical weapons cannot be ensured without convincing evidence of the chain-of-custody”, and said increasing the flow of arms to either side “would not be helpful”.

‘Chemical weapons used’

The US decision and announcement come as President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have been scoring a series of victories, driving rebels out of a key town near the Lebanese border and launching offensives in the central and northern parts of the country. Aleppo, the country’s largest city, has been particularly targeted.

US officials said the administration could provide the rebel fighters with a range of weapons, including small arms, ammunition, assault rifles and a variety of anti-tank weaponry such as shoulder-fired rocket-propelled grenades and other missiles.

Spotlight

In-depth coverage of escalating violence across Syria

However, no final decisions have been made on the type of weaponry or when it would reach the rebels, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal administration discussions with reporters.

In addition to the military aid, the US also announced on Thursday that it had conclusive evidence that Assad’s regime had used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against opposition forces. The White House said multiple chemical attacks last year killed up to 150 people.

Obama had earlier said that the use of chemical weapons cross a “red line”, triggering greater US involvement in the crisis.

‘Blood of Syrians’

The Syrian opposition has said that representatives from the Free Syrian Army (FSA), an umbrella group of armed opposition fighters, are to begin meeting with foreign officials from Saturday to discuss what form military aid could take.

“We hope to have the weapons and ammunition that we need in the near future,” General Salim Idris, the commander of the FSA, said.

“We encourage them to take a decision in this relation, by establishing a no-fly zone either all over Syria or areas they choose based on their technical or military considerations on the ground” to ensure safe areas for civilians, Loay Mikdad, an FSA spokesman, said.

“We hope they start arming immediately. Any delay costs blood of Syrians. It is not water, it is blood of the Syrians, women and children and its future.”

Mikdad said the rebels have asked for shoulder propelled rockets, thermal anti-tank missiles, anti-aircrafts missiles, surface-to-surface missiles and armoured vehicles.

Assad’s forces, aided by fighters from Lebanon’s armed group Hezbollah, captured the city of Qusair on June 5, dealing a heavy blow to rebels who had been entrenched in the strategic city for over a year.

The decision from the US came a day after the United Nations said nearly 93,000 people were confirmed dead in Syria’s civil war, but the actual number is believed to be much higher.

Ushakov, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, warned that providing such assistance could derail efforts to convene a Syria peace conference. The main opposition coalition has already said it would not attend, all but scuttling the initiative.

In Friday’s violence, Syrian troops and rebels fought some of the heaviest battles in months in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, activists said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the clashes were concentrated in the city’s eastern rebel-held neighbourhood of Sakhour, calling the fighting “the most violent in months”.

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EU Lawmakers Concerned About Repression in Russia

The European Parliament has questioned Russia’s legal system in a resolution that criticizes the lack of freedom of expression and assembly in Russia.

The resolution expresses concern about the “recent repressive laws and their arbitrary enforcement by the Russian authorities.”

It also criticizes targeted inspections, the confiscation of property, and administrative fines imposed on Russian nongovernmental organizations.

EU lawmakers also said they are worried about the State Duma’s passage of a law banning “homosexual propaganda. “

The resolution urges the EU Commission to significantly increase EU financial support to Russian NGOs and civil society.

A separate passage in the text reiterates the European Union’s call for common EU visa restrictions and asset freezes against Russian officials involved in the Sergei Magnitsky case.

Despite previous pleas from the European Parliament, EU member states have so far refrained from concerted actions.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

In Russia, World Environment Day Marred By Pressure On Green Groups

On June 5, green-minded people around the planet are marking World Environment Day, created in 1972 to raise awareness about the need to protect nature.

But in Russia, the mood among ecologists is sour.

Russia established its own Ecologist Day, also held on June 5, six years ago. And President Vladimir Putin has declared 2013 as the Year of Environment Protection.

Ecologists, however, say this has failed to translate into genuine efforts to curb rampant pollution in Russia.

“Russian Ecologist Day is a very cynical title because practically no attention is paid to ecology in Russia,” says Ivan Blokov, the head of Greenpeace’s Russian branch. “Generally, there is a depressing feeling that nothing has changed over the past three years in terms of environmental protection. The situation has not improved at all, and in some instances it has even worsened. This is true for almost all aspects of environmental protection and for the current state of the environment.”

Moreover, Russian environmental groups say a sweeping wave of inspections of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) is also putting their work in jeopardy.

Prosecutors have conducted spot audits at NGOs across Russia in recent months. Dozens of groups have also reported unannounced inspections by fire safety and sanitary officials.

Authorities say they are simply monitoring compliance with a new law forcing groups that receive foreign funding and are deemed to engage in political activities to register as “foreign agents,” a term that evokes images of Cold War espionage.

And while Putin has described the raids as “routine,” they have prompted a barrage of criticism from rights groups and Western governments, who say their real aim is to silence criticism of Putin.

Penalties for failing to comply to the law include six months’ suspension without a court order and, for individuals, up to three years in jail. Some groups fear they will have to shut down altogether.

Concentrate On Violations

As the searches gathered pace this spring, Greenpeace called on prosecutors to spare environmental groups and instead concentrate their efforts on punishing environmental violations.

But their calls fell on deaf ears.

As Blokov points out, environmentalists, too, can be a major irritant to authorities, especially in Russia’s far-flung provinces.

“If you look at the situation in regions, it’s ecologists who pose the most problems. They don’t stage mass rallies, but they create problems in areas that are vital for many local authorities,” Blokov says. “For instance, illegal and cynical land grabs, the granting of building permits to companies that pollute the environment and destroy forests, or simply the cover-up of facts about forest fires.”

The Norway-based organization Bellona, one of the top environmental NGOs active in Russia, was recently notified that it will be fined for alleged health and fire-safety violations.

Authorities are yet to determine the size of the fine, but Bellona has said it could reach $ 20,000.

Another environmental organization, Baikal Ecological Wave, has already been ordered to register as a “foreign agent.” The group, based in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, has appealed the decision.

READ NEXT: Environmental Cost Of Kyrgyzstan’s Kumtor Gold Mine

Spokesman Maksim Vorontsov believes his group was targeted for its role in organizing nationwide street protests.

The rallies had focused on local authorities’ reluctance to shut down a pulp-and-paper mill that has been polluting Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest and oldest lake, for decades.

“Baikal Environmental Wave has always maintained an independent stance and asked very uncomfortable questions,” Vorontsov says. “It has also encouraged people to protest concrete anti-ecological projects.”

Blogger Beaten

The assault on Russian ecologists has also gotten physical, with a number of them falling victim to vicious beatings in recent years.

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Activist Stepan Chernogubov was beaten after publishing a report about toxic waste.

Blogger Stepan Chernogubov was beaten up by a group of assailants last month after publishing a report accusing a local chrome factory of dumping toxic waste into a river in the Sverdlovsk region in Russia’s Ural Mountains.

A court is currently hearing the case of Konstantin Fetisov, who was assaulted after participating in a rally against the expansion of a dumping site in the town of Khimki, close to Moscow.

A Khimki official is accused of ordering the attack, which left Fetisov in a coma for three months.

The attack came two years after crusading ecologist and journalist Mikhail Beketov was brutally beaten in Khimki.

Beketov, who had battled plans to build a controversial Moscow-St. Petersburg highway through the Khimki Forest, sustained irreversible brain damage.

He died earlier this year at the age of 55.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Russia Starts Fulfilling $4.2bn Iraqi Arms Order

6-4-13 Iraq Business News:    UPI reports that Russia has started fulfilling a contract to send attack helicopters and short-range air defense systems to Iraq.

Sergei Chemezov (pictured), Chief Executive Officer of Russian Technologies (Rostec), was quoted by state news agency RIA Novosti as saying:

“The contract is being implemented, the production (of ordered equipment) has started.“

Iraq cancelled a $ 4.2-billion contract with Russia in 2012 following allegations of corruption, though the terms of the deal were renegotiated in early 2013.

Russia’s weapons trade has come under scrutiny because of an ongoing relationship with the Syrian military.

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Dinar Daddy’s Tidbits

U.S. Lawmakers Seek Russia Cooperation

U.S. lawmakers say they found no evidence in Russia suggesting that U.S. agents could have done anything differently to prevent the Boston Marathon bombings.

But the Americans say the U.S. and Russia should start cooperating more closely on terrorist threats to thwart such attacks in the future.

“Radical Islam is at our throat in the United States and it’s at the throat of the Russian people,” Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican from California, told reporters June 2 at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

He continued: “There’s an emerging threat to our security and our prosperity from a China that seems to be allying itself with all of the horrible regimes around the world and positioning itself against Russia and against the United States of America. These are the major threats to our well-being and we need to be working together more closely.”

U.S. investigators say two ethnic Chechen brothers who immigrated from Russia carried out the April 15 Boston bombings that killed three people and injured more than 260 others.

Russian security agencies in 2011 raised concerns with their U.S. counterparts about the possible Islamic radicalization of one of the brothers, Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

The FBI closed its initial investigation of Tsarnaev after interviewing him in Massachusetts and conducting a routine assessment following the Russian warning.

Tsarnaev visited Daghestan in Russia’s North Caucasus region in 2012.

Four days after the Boston bombings, Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a police shootout and his brother Dzokhar, 19, was arrested.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev could face the death penalty if convicted of carrying out the bombing. The mother of the brothers has said the charges against them are lies.

Since the bombings, some U.S. politicians have faulted U.S. agencies for failing to communicate effectively about the potential threat posed by the Tsarnaev brothers.

But Rohrabacher said he found no evidence during his meetings in Russia that U.S. agents could have done anything else that might have halted the attack. He said U.S. agents appeared to have acted appropriately, given the extent of their cooperation with Russia.

But he said the level of U.S.-Russian cooperation was “unacceptable.” Rohrabacher said that if U.S. and Russian agencies had been cooperating more closely to begin with, it was possible the attack could have been derailed.

Rohrabacher added that some of the six-member U.S. congressional delegation’s meetings in Russia, including with the FSB Federal Security Service, had been arranged by Hollywood action-movie star Steven Seagal.

Seagal, who attended the news conference at the U.S. Embassy, met with President Vladimir Putin in March and recently visited Chechnya for talks with Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of the North Caucasus republic.

Based on reports from Reuters and AP

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

US and Germany slam Russia over Syria arms

The United States and Germany told Russia that arming President Bashar al-Assad’s forces could jeopardise international efforts for a peace conference on Syria.

Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking after talks with his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle, said on Friday Russia’s plans to deliver S-300 missiles to Syria were “not helpful” while trying to organise a peace conference to end the conflict.

The missile shipment also posed a threat to Israel’s security, he added.

Despite their differences, the United States and Russia are trying to convene an international conference in June to end a 26-month-old conflict that has killed more than 80,000 people and threatens to engulf more countries in the Middle East.

Washington is hoping that the conference, known as “Geneva 2″ after a first conference last year in the Swiss city, will lead to a transitional government in Syria.

Russia has said it is committed to fulfilling a 2010 contract with Assad’s government for S-300 long-range surface-to-air missiles as a deterrent against foreign military intervention.

It slammed an EU decision this week to ease an embargo on arming the rebels – a move a European diplomat said was aimed at demonstrating to Assad that the West could eventually arm rebel forces.

Westerwelle told Russia that delivering the missiles “is totally wrong.”

He called on Assad “to stop the violence and come to the negotiating table” and urged the opposition to unite and participate in the meeting.

“It is very important that this Geneva 2 conference gets a realistic chance. And therefore, we ask and urge everyone not to spoil this conference,” Westerwelle said, adding, “No one knows if this conference will become a success, but it is the wrong message which has been sent by Russia to the world and to the region by delivering S-300 or other weapons.”

‘The world will know’

While Kerry criticised Moscow’s commitment to ship missiles to Assad, he also said Russia indicated it supported a transitional government in Syria.

“We will learn very quickly whether or not they and others are acting in good faith in an effort to provide legitimate names that might be acceptable to both sides who could provide that transitional government. And if they’re not, the world will know it,” Kerry said.

“Now, it is not helpful to have the S-300 transferred to the region while you are trying to organise this peace and create peace. It is not helpful to have a lot of other ammunition and other supplies going in, not just from the Russians, and they are supplying that kind of thing, but also from Iranians and Hezbollah.”

Particularly worrying for the West is that the anti-aircraft missile system could make it far more dangerous to impose a no-fly zone, and could threaten planes deep inside the air space of Israel or NATO-member Turkey.

Israel, which has bombed Syria at least three times in recent months to prevent Assad from transferring arms to his Lebanese Hezbollah allies, has called on Moscow to scrap the S-300 deliveries.

“It has a profoundly negative impact on the balance of interests and the stability of the region, and it does put Israel at risk,” Kerry said of the deliveries. “And it is not, in our judgment, responsible because of the size of the weapon, the nature of the weapon and what it does to the region in terms of Israel’s security,” he said.

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Prominent Economist Leaves Russia After Questioning

Prominent Russian economist Sergei Guriev has left the country after being questioned by state investigators.

News of Guriev’s departure comes amid a continuing clampdown on President Vladimir Putin’s critics.

Guriev, who is said to be in France, has acted as an adviser to the government and served on the boards of several state companies.

He has been questioned as a witness in an investigation into the defunct Yukos oil company, whose founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, remains in prison since being jailed in 2003 for fraud.

Guriev has previously expressed critical opinions about the case.

He also has been outspoken in his support for opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, who is currently on trial for embezzlement.

He has confirmed he is not seeking reelection to the board of state-owned Sberbank.

But he declined comment on reports he has resigned as rector of Moscow’s New Economic School.

Based on reporting by Reuters, ft.com, and Interfax

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

U.S., Russia At Loggerheads Over Lifting Of EU Arms Embargo

The United States and Russia are again at loggerheads over the Syria crisis – this time over the European Union’s decision not to renew its embargo on providing arms to Syrian rebels.

White House spokesman Jay Carney welcomed the EU move but indicated the U.S. has no plans of its own to arm the opposition.

Carney also condemned Russian arms transfers to the Syrian government, saying such sales don’t move the warring parties closer to a political solution.

Russia earlier denounced the EU move as illegitimate, saying it undermines efforts to convene an international peace conference cosponsored by the United States and Russia.

Moscow also defended its decision to deliver S-300 antiaircraft missiles to the Syrian government, saying they would help deter any foreign military intervention.

Based on reporting by AFP, dpa, and Reuters

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Russia: Iran must join Syria peace conference

Russia has said that it is imperative for Iran to join a proposed peace conference on Syria despite reservations from some Western nations.

“The issue of Iran is key for us,” said Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, while on a visit to Paris on Tuesday. “Iran, without question, is one of the most important nations.”

Russia has argued that both Iran, a key backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and rebel ally Saudi Arabia should take part in the negotiations as part of a new push for peace agreed by Moscow and Washington earlier this month.

France has already rejected the idea of Iran taking part, while the United States has responded to Moscow’s proposal with scepticism.

On Monday, Lavrov said that he and US Secretary of State John Kerry had agreed in Paris that more “clarity” was needed about who could take part in the proposed negotiations before a date for them could be set.

“We must get clarity about the participants,” said Lavrov. “And this concerns not only the Syrians that will represent the various levels of society, but also the foreign players.”

Russia and Iran are seen as Assad’s most important allies and key suppliers of weapons used by the regime’s forces.

No date set

Diplomats have said that details of how the conference would be organised had yet to be agreed, and there was still no firm agreement on the date.

The possibility of an arms race in Syria overshadows attempts to bring representatives of the Assad regime and Syria’s political opposition to peace talks.

The talks, though seen as a long shot, constitute the international community’s only plan for ending the conflict that began more than two years ago and has killed more than 70,000 people.

Syria’s fractured opposition, which has not yet committed to the Geneva talks, could also be lured to the table if attendance is linked to receiving weapons in the event that talks fail.

Opposition leaders have said they will only participate in talks if Assad’s departure from power tops the agenda, a demand Assad and his Russian backers have rejected.

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Russia to Send Syria Missiles, Fears Wider War

DAMASCUS (AFP) — Russia insisted Tuesday it would deliver anti-aircraft missiles to war-torn Syria despite international criticism and a border-area attack killed three Lebanese soldiers, adding to growing fears of a wider conflict.

Israel warned it would act if the Russian delivery went ahead, and Syria’s top rebel commander gave Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese Shiite movement, a 24-hour ultimatum to stop fighting alongside regime forces.

The developments stoked tensions after the European Union decided to lift an embargo on weapons to Syria’s rebels, in a move the opposition reacted to with caution.

Syria’s regime joined its ally Russia in condemning the EU decision as an “obstruction” to peace efforts, while accusing the bloc of supporting and encouraging “terrorists”.

The United States said it supports the EU move as a show of “full support” for the rebels, despite its own refusal to provide arms it fears will end up in jihadist hands.

Moscow said its plans to deliver to Damascus the S-300 missiles — designed to intercept aircraft or other missiles like Patriots NATO has already deployed on Turkey’s border with Syria — were part of existing contracts.

“We consider these supplies a stabilising factor,” deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said, adding they could act as a deterrence against foreign intervention.

Israel has strongly objected to the delivery, and its defence minister warned of a response.

“The deliveries have not taken place, and I hope they do not. But if, by misfortune, they arrive in Syria, we will know what to do,” said Moshe Yaalon.

The Jewish state has reportedly carried out at least three strikes against Syria since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad erupted in March 2011, apparently targeting weapons.

On the ground, the conflict has already spilled over into Lebanon, and in the latest incident three soldiers were killed in an attack near the northern border town of Arsal, where most people back Syria’s uprising.

And in the eastern Lebanese town of Hermel, security sources said six rockets apparently fired from Syria hit the Hezbollah stronghold, wounding seven people.

Hezbollah is allied with Syria’s regime and fighting alongside the army against the rebels, including in the central town of Qusayr, where it has lost dozens of men.

Its role has raised fears Lebanon could be dragged into the war, and rebel chief Salim Idriss warned his fighters would respond within 24 hours if the group failed to halt its intervention.

“If the attacks of Hezbollah against Syrian territory do not stop within 24 hours, we will take all measures to hunt Hezbollah, even in hell,” he told Al-Arabiya news channel.

The tensions overshadowed an ongoing meeting in Istanbul of Syria’s opposition National Coalition, which responded cautiously to the EU’s decision to lift its arms embargo on the rebels.

“Definitely it is a positive step, but we are afraid it could be too little, too late,” spokesman Louay Safi told AFP.

The EU agreed Monday to lift the embargo, but no member state intends to send any weapons immediately for fear of endangering prospects for a peace conference.

The move divided the 27-member bloc, with Britain and France in favour and Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland and Sweden reticent to pour more arms into a conflict that has already cost some 94,000 lives.

But even with the lifting of the embargo, countries are expected to hold off on sending weapons to the rebels to allow efforts to convene the peace conference dubbed Geneva 2 that Russia and the United States are trying to organise as early as next month.

The opposition is still discussing whether to attend the conference, and Russia insisted Tuesday that Iran — a key Assad backer — must be invited, despite Western reservations.

“The issue of Iran is key for us,” Russian media quoted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying.

The delay in any decision to supply arms, potentially until another EU review on August 1, angered rebel fighters.

“Why wait another two months? So that the Syrian people continue to be subjected to genocide?” Qassem Saadeddine, rebel spokesman told AFP.

Fighting continued to rage, including at the central prison in northern Aleppo, with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog saying at least 86 people were killed across the country on Tuesday.

Assyrian International News Agency

Russia to send air-defence system to Syria

Russia will not cancel plans to deliver an air-defence system to Syria despite Western opposition in order to help deter foreign intervention in the two-year-old conflict, according to the country’s deputy foreign minister.

Speaking in Moscow on Tuesday, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also accused the EU of “throwing fuel on the fire” by letting its own arms embargo on Syria expire.

“We think this delivery is a stabilising factor and that such steps in many ways restrain some hotheads from exploring scenarios in which this conflict could be given an international character with participation of outside forces,” Ryabkov said.

Israel and France had urged Moscow to refrain from sending high-precision S-300 missile systems to President Bashar al-Assad’s government in its campaign against opposition fighters.

Russian officials have not disclosed whether S-300s have actually been sent to Syria and Ryabkov would not specify.

“I can’t confirm or deny that these deliveries have taken place. I can only say that we will not disavow them,” he said.

“We see that this issue worries many of our partners but we have no basis to review our position in this sphere.”

Moshe Yaalon, the Israeli defence minister, said on Tuesday that S-300s had not left Russia yet, seeming to contradict Israel’s air force chief, who said last week the shipment of the missiles was on its way to Syria.

Russia has been Assad’s most powerful ally during the 26-month-old conflict, opposing sanctions and blocking, with China, three Western-backed UN Security Council resolutions meant to pressure the Syrian government to stop fighting.

Russia has vehemently opposed military intervention or arming Syrian rebels while defending its right to deliver arms to the government, its long-time client – though it says it has been supplying only defensive weapons under existing contracts.

Earlier Ryabkov said the EU’s failure to renew an arms embargo on Syria would undermine the chances for peace talks that Moscow and Washington are trying to organise.

Both the Syrian government and the opposition have agreed in principle to enter direct talks in the Swiss city of Geneva next month.

Assad’s regime has been using extensive firepower against lightly armed rebel factions.

More than 94,000 people have died since the uprising against Assad’s regime erupted in March 2011, according to the latest UN figures.

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Russia Says Syria Government Agrees In Principle To Conference

Russia’s Foreign Ministry says Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government has agreed in principle to attend an international peace conference in Geneva proposed by Russia and the United States.

However, ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich said on May 24 that it is impossible to set the date for the conference at this point because there is “no clarity about who will speak on behalf of the opposition and what powers they will have.”

Meanwhile, the opposition Syrian National Coalition was continuing talks in Istanbul on May 24 on whether to take part in the prospective Geneva talks with members of Assad’s regime.

One day earlier, a coalition spokesman said attending such a gathering is possible only if Assad first signals he is on his way out.

More than 80,000 people have been killed in the two-year-old conflict.

Based on reporting by AP and Reuters

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Russia: Syria agrees to take part in talks

Russia says the Syrian government had agreed in principle to attend an international peace conference proposed by Russia and the US, and criticised what it called attempts to undermine peace efforts.

The summit has been suggested by the US and Russia and could take place in the Swiss city of Geneva.

“We note with satisfaction that we have received an agreement in principle from Damascus to attend the international conference, in the interest of Syrians themselves finding a political path to resolve the conflict, which is ruinous for the nation and region,” Alexander Lukashevich, Russian foreign ministry spokesman, said on Friday.

Faisal Mekdad, Syrian deputy foreign minister, said after talks in Moscow on Wednesday the government would soon decide whether to take part in the conference aimed at bringing government and opposition representatives together for talks.

Lukashevich said international action including a May 15 UN General Assembly resolution that praised the opposition and condemned President Bashar al-Assad’s forces has “essentially pushed [the opposition)]to reject negotiations”.

Some European media have reported that the conference has been tentatively scheduled to be held on June 10.

But Lukashevich said such reports “cannot be taken seriously” because the ranks of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s foes remain so divided.

“Demands to immediately name a specific date for the conference without having clarity about who, and with what authority, will speak in the name of the opposition, cannot be taken seriously,” Lukashevich said.

The opposition Syrian National Coalition, which is currently meeting in Istanbul, to discuss an interim government, has said it will only go to “Geneva II” if Assad steps down as president.

Louai Safi, a senior member of Syria’s main opposition, told Al Jazeera, “The fact that it has been announced in Moscow, rather than in Damascus, is a worrying point, as we want to hear the spokesperson of the Syrian government making that statement with clarity.”

“There is alot of ambiguity. What does it mean, ‘in principle’?,” he said.

“We want to hear definitive answers….We want to see a clarity of the purpose of Geneva.”

The Syrian National Coalition, which is main opposition group based outside the country, entered a second day of talks on Friday aimed at finding an approach to the joint Russian-US peace push.

The first Geneva meeting in June last year ended in a broad agreement aimed at forming a transition government in Syria and introducing a long-lasting truce.

But the deal was never implemented because of disagreements over Assad’s role in the new government and neither side’s decision to lay down their arms.

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Russia, Serbia To Sign Strategic Agreement

Serbia and Russia are due to sign an agreement later in the day on strategic partnership.

The document is scheduled to be signed by President Vladimir Putin and his Serb counterpart Tomislav Nikolic in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Serbian media say the agreement calls on the bolstering of ties across a spectrum of areas, including business, trade, and infrastructure projects.

It also backs closer political cooperation, especially on the issue of Kosovo, whose 2008 declaration of independence has been recognized by neither Serbia nor Russia.

Serbian First Deputy PM and Defense Minister Aleksandar Vucic will also travel to Russia and meet with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

Based on reporting by B92 and ITAR-TASS

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

In Russia, Drunk Driver Who Killed Seven Jailed

A Russian drunk driver who triggered nationwide debate after killing seven people, including five orphan children, in a road accident last year has been sentenced to prison.

A Moscow court has ordered Aleksandr Maksimov to serve 8 1/2 years in prison.

Maksimov sparked an outcry in Russia last fall when he crashed his car into a bus stop at 200 kilometers per hour while drunk and high on cannabis.

Officials, including President Vladimir Putin, scrambled to propose stronger drunk-driving penalties and road-safety measures.

Each year, approximately 30,000 Russians die in road accidents.

Based on reporting by AP and ITAR-TASS

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Eurovision Vote Theft Claims Roil Russia, Azerbaijan

Russia’s foreign minister called it “outrageous.”

In Baku, hopes were expressed that the incident would not damage Russian-Azerbaijani relations.

The issue? Possible vote theft at the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest.

Azerbaijani officials are investigating why Azerbaijan gave Russia’s song entry “nul points” at this year’s final, held in Malmo, Sweden, on May 18.

The probe was launched after it emerged that Azerbaijani viewers voting by text message and phone put the Russian entry, Dina Garipova, in second place. That should have secured her 10 points from Baku.

But when the Azerbaijani vote was announced on television, it awarded Russia no points.

At a news conference in Moscow on May 21, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov and his Russian counterparrt Sergei Lavrov said both their countries will investigate the possible violations.

Mammadyarov indicated that Azerbaijan’s public television needs to clarify the situation due to the responsibility it bears as the main partner of the European Broadcasting Union, which holds the contest.

“According to the data from all three mobile phone operators — and there are three of them in Azerbaijan — Russia’s [representative] was consistently voted in second,” he said. “Where have those votes gone? How have they disappeared?”

Lavrov said that the “outrageous” incident would not be left without a response.

“Certainly, there is nothing to be happy about knowing that we — or rather our participant [at the Eurovision] has been robbed of 10 points.”

The head of Azerbaijan’s state broadcaster, Camil Guliyev, said in a statement that he hopes the incident, “possibly initiated by certain interest groups, will not cast a shadow over the brotherly relations of the Russian and Azerbaijani peoples.”

Eurovision viewers from all participating countries vote by phone or text message. Television broadcasters then announce the votes live during the contest, after collecting them from national phone operators.

Russia awarded Azerbaijan’s representative, Farid Mammadov, the maximum 12 points. Mammadov’s ballad, “Hold Me,” finished second, after Denmark’s “Only Teardrops.”

Ten points from Azerbaijan still wouldn’t have been enough to secure a top spot for Garipova, whose “What if” gave Russia a fifth-place finish.

Still, the “missing points” scandal has shone a spotlight on the contest’s highly controversial voting system, whereby countries often seem to award points to song entries based on geopolitics.

Azerbaijan hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 2012 amid criticism of its poor human rights record as well as corruption scandals surrounding the construction of Baku’s Eurovision arena and the demolition of houses in preparation for the contest.

Despite attempts to maintain good relations, there have been tensions in the past between Russia and Azerbaijan over issues such as weapons transfers and oil and gas pipelines.

– Deana Kjuka

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Navalny Trial Resumes In Russia

KIROV, Russia — The embezzlement trial of opposition leader and anticorruption blogger Aleksei Navalny has resumed in the central Russian city of Kirov.

The trial had been adjourned on May 16 after several witnesses in the case testified.

Navalny is accused of stealing the equivalent of $ 510,000 from the Kirovles lumber company while he was working for Kirov Oblast’s governor.

One of the witnesses, former deputy general director of “Kirovles,” Larisa Bastrygina, testified on May 16 that Navalny pushed her company to sign “unprofitable” agreements with clients.

Navalny and his lawyers insist that the case is politically motivated.

Navalny is a vocal opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin and has expressed an interest in running for president.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Russia deeply concerned about violence in Iraq

5-19-13 Shafaq News / Moscow expressed its concern at the escalating sectarian tensions in Iraq, as a result of the Syrian crisis as announced today by the Russian Foreign Ministry.

“It was observed in the past week, the outbreak of a new wave of violence in Iraq, as a series of terrorist attacks swept the country, showed the increasing tension between extremists groups of Sunni and Shiite, including those that linked to Al-Qaeda,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement briefed by “Shafaq News”.

The ministry pointed out that the next day in Baghdad, several explosions occurred, accompanied by armed clashes, which killed more than 50 people and wounded about 100.

“Moscow is very concerned about the next turn of the violence in Iraq, and strongly condemns all terrorist attacks”.

“Russia is convinced that the existing differences among Iraqis need to be dealt with exclusively in a peaceful manner, taking into account the interests of all political and ethnic groups as well as religious groups in the country,” the statement added.

The security situation in Iraq declined remarkably since the events of Hawija, believing most of the attacks that followed the incident carry sectarian shape.

LINK

Dinar Daddy’s Tidbits

US scolds Russia for sending arms to Syria

The US has scolded Russia for sending missiles to the Syrian government, with plans for an international peace conference promoted by the two major powers appearing to founder on diplomatic rifts over its scope and purpose.

General Martin Dempsey, the most senior US military officer, has described Russia’s recent delivery of anti-ship missiles to President Bashar al-Assad as “ill-timed and very unfortunate”.

“It’s at the very least an unfortunate decision that will embolden the regime and prolong the suffering,” he said in Washington DC on Friday.

He said the transfer of Russian arms risked extending the war which has already killed more than 80,000 Syrian people and which the UN says has driven 1.5 million abroad.

The divisions appear just 10 days after Russia and the US agreed to bury differences and push for an urgent international conference to end the war.

Russia has not responded directly to the media reports that said it has sent a new batch of upgraded Yakhont anti-ship missile systems that make a shipping embargo of Syria much more difficult to enforce.

However, during a visit by Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, to Moscow on Friday for talks on Syria, Sergey Lavrov, Russian foreign minister, defended sending arms to the Middle East country, saying it was done “without violating any international agreements, or our own legislation”.

With a range of 300km, the Yakhont could prove a threat to warships in the Mediterranean, should, for example, Western powers abandon their deep reserve and intervene to offer air support to the rebels, as they did in Libya two years ago.

Proposed meeting

No date has yet been agreed for the international meeting, which is intended to be attended by representatives from the Syrian government and the opposition, as well as international figures.

Ban met Putin in Russia on Friday, and said the conference should take place as soon as possible.

But highlighting the diplomatic challenge it poses, France has spelled out explicitly that it will oppose any meeting were Assad’s regional ally Iran to be invited – contrary to the Russian position that Iran should be part of a solution.

Spotlight

In-depth coverage of escalating violence across Syria

The rebels and key Arab and Western backers will meet in Amman, Jordan, on Wednesday to discuss how to approach the conference.

It is also unclear that Assad’s opponents can forge a united front or agree to meet his representatives.

After months of diplomatic stalemate, the US and Russia have been pushed to convene the conference as Syria’s death toll and atrocities rise and amid signs of escalation across the country’s frontiers.

Suspicions that chemical arms may have been used have also deepened the crisis.

A Western diplomat at the UN in New York said the target date for the peace conference was June 10-15, but it depended on the readiness of the Syrian parties.

An alternative plan would be to hold an international conference and then have the Syrians meet at a later date when they are prepared.

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U.S. Criticizes Russia On Missiles To Syria

The top U.S. military officer has denounced Russia for providing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime with anti-ship missiles, saying the weapons will only worsen the Syrian war.

The comments by General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came after “The New York Times” reported that Russia recently delivered a shipment to Syria’s government of Yakhont anti-ship cruise missiles equipped with advanced radar.

“It’s, at the very least, an unfortunate decision that will embolden the regime and prolong the suffering,” Dempsey told reporters in Washington on May 17. “So, it’s ill-timed and very unfortunate.”

Reports say the missiles could mark a threat to warships active off Syria in the Mediterranean.

Dempsey said he was worried the Russian shipment could make President Assad feel more secure.

Speaking at the same press conference, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel urged Russia to reconsider providing the Syrian government with military aid, saying an arms buildup in the Middle East is “dangerous” and the U.S. and Russia both have an interest in preventing a regional war.

The United States supports Syria’s rebels and has demanded the exit of the Assad regime.

Russia is a longtime ally of the Syrian government and has opposed foreign involvement in the more than two-year-old conflict.

Moscow, a major arms supplier to the government, has said it will continue to fulfill weapons contracts with the regime, even with the conflict raging.

Despite their differences, Washington and Moscow earlier this month agreed to launch a joint effort to convene an international conference aimed at ending the war.

However, no date has yet been agreed for any meeting.

France on May 17 said it would oppose any conference if Iran, an ally of the Syrian regime, was invited.

Russia has said Iran could be a part of any solution to the Syrian war, which is estimated to have left more than 80,000 people dead.

In another development, The United Nations refugee agency said the number of Syrian refugees has now surpassed 1.5 million.

Agency spokesman Dan McNorton said, however, that the actual number of refugees is probably “much higher,” since the UN’s figures reflect only refugees who have registered with authorities.

McNorton said conditions have deteriorated rapidly in Syria during the past four months.

The UN says most Syrian refugees have fled to Jordan or Lebanon, each of which has more than 470,000 registered refugees.

Based on reports from AFP, AP and Reuters

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

UN chief in Russia as Syria crisis deepens

UN chief Ban Ki-moon is due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin as global pressure grows on Moscow to end arms supplies to the Syrian regime and drop its support for President Bashar al-Assad.

On Friday, Ban also met with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi.

At a press conference with Lavrov, Ban said: ”We should not lose the momentum,” generated by a US-Russian proposal to bring the Syrian government and opposition representatives to a peace conference. 

Ban’s mission and a recent visit to Sochi by British Prime Minister David Cameron follow Putin’s early May talks in Moscow with US Secretary of State John Kerry, during which the sides agreed to set up a new round of Syria negotiations within a matter of weeks.

Ban said that the conference should be held as soon as possible, but added that no date had yet been agreed.

Lavrov said: “The sooner this conference is held, the better … the key thing now is who is ready to take part on the Syrian side.”

Peace conference

Ban also used the visit to renew a call on Damascus to allow UN experts in to assess claims over alleged chemical weapons use.

Lavrov called alleged chemical weapons use “a serious problem” and supported the call for an investigation. 

Ban’s meetings come after French President Francois Hollande upped the pressure on the Kremlin on Thursday by saying more efforts were needed to convince Moscow to “finish with Bashar al-Assad”.

That meeting – now expected to take place in Geneva in early June – hopes to build on a failed June 2012 peace initiative that called for the quick creation of a transitional government but defined no clear role for Assad.

Al Jazeera’s Neave Barker, reporting from Moscow, said: “More than anything, Ban is going to make sure potential Geneva talks happen when they have been promised to happen.

“Ban will want to make sure of the cooperation between the US and Russia at this crucial time.”

Moscow is also calling for the inclusion on this occasion of its trading partner Iran and US ally Saudi Arabia as a counterweight. 

Weapons supply

Russia continues to deliver arms to Syria – the regime’s most powerful remaining ally – but claims that it has no real interest in seeing Assad remain in power.

But many continue to express alarm at Russia’s decision to supply Syria with various powerful missiles and question how this fits in with Russia’s commitment to a negotiated end to the crisis.

“I do not understand why the media is trying to create a sensation out of this,” said Lavrov, during Friday’s press conference. “We have not hidden that we supply weapons to Syria under signed contracts, without violating any international agreements, or our own legislation.”

Spotlight

In-depth coverage of escalating violence across Syria

The New York Times reported on Friday that Russia has also sent the regime a new batch of upgraded Yakhont anti-ship missile systems that make a shipping embargo of Syria much more difficult to enforce.

Al Jazeera’s David Chater, reporting from Moscow, says Putin “will not sacrifice such a vital strategic partnership, no matter what weight of international pressure is applied”.

Russia is opposed to any armed intervention by the West in Syria.

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Russia ‘Expelled Another U.S. Spy’ Earlier This Year

Russian state television has aired footage claiming that another alleged American spy was expelled earlier this year.

In a TV broadcast on May 15, a man sitting in near darkness and identified as an FSB officer said a “CIA operative” was expelled in January.

He said the FSB then asked its U.S. counterparts to halt this “disturbing activity.”

The allegedly expelled agent was not named.

U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters in Washington on May 15 that “we’ve seen those media reports, but I have nothing for you on a January case at all.”

The TV broadcast comes after Russia ordered U.S. diplomat Ryan Fogle on May 14 to leave the country after the security services claimed to have caught him trying to recruit a Russian agent in Moscow.

With reporting by AP

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Teams From U.S., Iran, Russia Back Olympic Wrestling

Wrestlers from the United States, Iran, and Russia have appeared jointly at the United Nations to promote the value of wrestling.

The teams, which are in New York for a wrestling exhibition on May 15 at New York’s Grand Central Station railway terminal, hope to apply pressure on the International Olympic Committee to keep their sport in the Olympics.

The International Olympic Committee’s 15-member executive board sparked outcry in February when it voted to recommend that wrestling be dropped from the 2020 Olympic program.

The committee will make a final decision in Buenos Aires in September on which sport will get the final spot in a revamped lineup for 2020.

Wrestling is battling against baseball and softball, karate, rollersports, wushu martial arts, wakeboarding, squash, and climbing.

Based on reporting by AP and AFP

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Russia to expel US diplomat accused of spying

Russia has detained an alleged American CIA agent working undercover at the US embassy who was discovered with a large stash of money trying to recruit a Russian agent, officials said on Tuesday.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) identified the man as Ryan Fogle, the third secretary of the political section of Washington’s embassy in Moscow, and said he had been handed back to the embassy after his detention.

The foreign ministry said it was summoning US ambassador Michael McFaul on Wednesday for an explanation and slammed Washington for what it described as “provocative acts in the spirit of the Cold War.”

Photographs published by the state English-language broadcaster RT showed a baseball-capped Fogle being held to the ground face down and having his hands put behind his back for the arrest.

He was then shown being questioned at the Federal Security Service while documents such as his passport and a stack of 500-euro notes along with some letters were displayed.

The FSB footage also displayed supposed espionage equipment including wigs, a torch, compass and even a mundane atlas of Moscow as well as a somewhat old-fashioned mobile phone.

The FSB said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies that Fogle was carrying “special technical equipment, written instructions for recruiting a Russian citizen, a large sum of money and means for changing a person’s appearance.”

‘We did not believe this’

In a video that RT said was provided by the FSB, Fogle is seen sitting down as a man, presumably a Russian security officer, tells the suspect about his alleged crime.

He is then accused of offering $ 100,000 for espionage to a security service employee who is involved in counterinsurgency work in the Russian North Caucasus.

“We did not believe this at first, because as you know the FSB has been actively helping the investigation of the Boston blasts,” the officer says as Fogle and three men silently listen with arms crossed.

The incident comes amid a new downturn in Russian-US relations sparked by the Syrian crisis and concern in Washington over what it sees as president Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on all dissent.

The last major spy row between the two former Cold War rivals involved the glamourous Anna Chapman and 10 other Russian spies arrested in the United States in 2010.

The spy scandal, which ended with their swap for four Russians convicted of spying for the West, was a huge embarrassment for Russia’s foreign intelligence at the time.

The FSB and Russia’s tightly-controlled state media appeared intent Tuesday on showing to the public that the man it had caught was a real agent who posed a danger to Russia’s interests.

The photos published by RT also showed a document entitled “printed instructions for the Russian citizen being recruited.”

Analysts said the fact that the case received such media attention means that senior Russian leaders had decided to use the arrest to make a political point to Washington.

Some such cases are often handled quietly and tit-for-tat expulsions are sometimes only made public once completed.

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Russia Orders Alleged CIA Spy To Leave

Russia has ordered an alleged agent of the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency to leave the country.

The Foreign Ministry said on May 14 that the man, identified as Ryan Christopher Fogle, must return to the United States “as soon as possible.”

It added that “such provocative actions in the spirit of the Cold War will by no means promote the strengthening of mutual trust” between Moscow and Washington.

Russia’s Federal Security Service earlier said Fogle was briefly detained overnight for allegedly trying to recruit a Russian counterterrorism officer who specializes in the volatile Caucasus region in southern Russia.

The region includes Chechnya, where the two Boston Marathon bombing suspects had their ethnic roots.

Russian state TV showed pictures of the man it identified as Fogle. It also displayed objects said to belong to him, including two wigs for disguise, a compass, a map of Moscow, a pocket knife, three pairs of sunglasses and envelopes of 500 euro notes (each bill worth $ 649).

The report said Fogle worked “under cover” as third secretary of the U.S. embassy’s political section.

The State Department on May 14 only confirmed that Fogle worked as an embassy employee, but wouldn’t give any details about his employment record or responsibilities in Russia.

“We can confirm that an officer of the U.S. embassy in Moscow was briefly detained and was released; we have seen the Russian Foreign Ministry announcement and we have no further comment at this time,” U.S. State Department Acting Deputy Spokesperson Patrick Ventrell told reporters in Washington.

The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul to appear May 15 in connection with the case.

McFaul said he would not comment on the spying allegation.

Despite the end of the Cold War, Russia and the United States still maintain active espionage operations against each other.

Fogle was the first American diplomat to be publicly accused of spying in Russia in about a decade.

Last year, several Russians were convicted in separate cases of spying for the U.S. and sentenced to lengthy prison sentences.

Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, AFP

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Russia and U.S. Back Syrian Diplomatic Solution

Russia and the United States have announced they will encourage the rebels in Syria and Damascus government to hold talks on a political transition to end more than two years of bloodshed that has left some 70,000 dead.

The announcement was made May 7 at a press conference in Moscow by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Kerry arrived in the Russian capital earlier in the day for two days of talks expected to focus on the crisis in Syria. It’s Kerry’s first trip to Russia since being named secretary of state. Earlier, Kerry met with President Vladimir Putin.

Lavrov said an international conference on Syria could be held as soon as later this month.

“We have agreed on the following: Russia and the United States will encourage both the Syrian government and the opposition groups, in order to find a political solution. We also agreed on the necessity to try as quickly as possible, even by the end of the month, to call together for an international conference that will be a follow up of the Geneva conference that took place in June last year in Geneva,” Lavrov told reporters.

The Geneva plans spell out steps to establish an interim government with both sides able to veto candidates it found unacceptable. The plan has never gotten off the ground.

Kerry said it would be up to the Syrians to decide whether President Bashar al-Assad takes part in the process.

“It’s impossible for me as an individual to understand how Syria could possibly be governed in the future by the man who has, you know, has committed the things that we know have taken place. But that’s not – I’m not going to decide that tonight, and I’m not going to decide that in the end. Because the Geneva communiqué says that the transitional government has to be chosen by mutual consent, by the parties,” Kerry explained

Kerry suggested progress on a political solution in Syria could impact Washington’s decision on whether to arm the rebels.

“If this kind of process can move successfully, to bring parties together and actually implement the Geneva communiqué, hopefully that would not be necessary. So much will depend on what happens over the course of these next weeks,” Kerry said.

Lavrov said Washington and Moscow had a common task in fighting terrorism.

“All of the problems and all of the disagreements were set aside, and we consolidated efforts to fight mutual evil. And today we have this kind of necessary task. Terrorism, extremism and many other threats demand unification of efforts. You can’t have any types of zero sum games here,” Lavrov said.

Moscow has been a strong ally of Assad, supplying him with arms, and blocking sanctions against Syria at the United Nations.

Based on AP and Reuters reporting

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

BBG Governors Seek to Expand U.S. International Media Efforts in Russia

MOSCOW — At the end of their May 3-7 visit to Moscow, Broadcasting Board of Governors’ (BBG) Board members Susan McCue and Michael Meehan released the following statement:

“Given the rapidly shrinking independent media across Russia over the past few months, we have asked the management of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Russian Service and Voice of America Russian Service to redouble US international media efforts in that country. After our many meetings in Moscow with a range of Russian media experts and champions of human rights and civil society, we believe it is critical to have the best, most experienced news reporters working for us covering Russia both inside and outside of the country.

“In particular, we have asked Acting RFE/RL President Kevin Klose and his team to continue their timely outreach now under way to all the former Radio Liberty journalists, whose expertise could assist in providing important insight and valuable analysis of the inner workings of Russia today.

“We wish to underscore recent observations by Reporters Without Borders, which noted that ever since Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency, the Russian government ‘has had a spate of repressive laws passed in order to prevent the growth of more freedom of information,’ and that this is ‘a crucial moment for freedom of information in that country.’

“Upon our return to Washington, DC, we intend to follow up on positive dialogues with Ambassador Michael McFaul and others about seeking creative partnerships to explore the potential of expanding platforms for distribution of our broadcasters’ programs. Radio Liberty is more critical than ever as Russia tightens the flow of communication throughout the country.”

Read the original release on the BBG’s website.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Kerry’s Russia Trip To Focus On Syria, Counterterrorism

WASHINGTON – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrives in Moscow on Tuesday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other officials that are expected to focus on Syria and counterterrorism cooperation.

The nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea, the transition in Afghanistan, bilateral trade, and thorny human rights issues are also expected to be discussed during the two-day trip.

The visit is Kerry’s first to Russia since becoming the top U.S. diplomat in February. It comes as the Obama administration looks to rekindle the “reset” in relations that has taken a beating since Putin’s reelection last year.

In announcing the trip to reporters in late April, Kerry called it “overdue.”

In meetings with Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on May 7, Kerry is expected to renew the U.S. push for Moscow to alter its stance in support of longtime ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Backed by U.S. intelligence pointing to the use of chemical weapons in the country, Kerry is expected to argue that the window for a diplomatic solution to the crisis is quickly closing.

Syria Sticking Point

For more than a year, U.S. efforts to sway Russia on Syria have largely fallen on deaf ears, with the Kremlin denouncing any steps it sees as precursors for foreign intervention.

Russia and China have blocked bids for toughened UN action against Damascus. Moscow has continued to funnel weapons to the regime, even as the death toll has soared past 70,000.

Mark Katz, an expert on Russia’s foreign policy in the Middle East at George Mason University, says the chances of a breakthrough during Kerry’s visit are minimal.

“I expect that the most [Kerry] can achieve is that the Russians will perhaps not be so strident about the Americans and their allies taking actions. Probably the best [the United States] can hope for is that [Russia] will do nothing actively to help Assad against any American and Western action,” Katz said.

“Even if [the Russians] don’t expect Assad to survive, they don’t want to be seen as helping undermine someone who has been an ally. If there’s going to be a mess in Syria, that has to be blamed squarely on the West.”

After Boston

Kerry’s visit also comes in the wake of last month’s terror attack in Boston. The revelation that two ethnic Chechen immigrants are the suspected perpetrators has led to a renewed focus on counterterrorism cooperation.

Analysts say mistrust and entrenched bureaucracies on both sides have limited intelligence-sharing in the past and will likely continue to do so.

Nevertheless, a senior U.S. State Department official told reporters ahead of Kerry’s visit that the Boston attack has opened “a new era in U.S.-Russian [counterterrorism] cooperation.”

North Korean belligerence and the ongoing nuclear standoff with Iran will also be discussed.

Washington has tried to assure Moscow that its missile defense plans are aimed at countering those threats and not at subduing Russia.

Last month, Obama dispatched his top national security adviser, Thomas Donilon, to the Russian capital to deliver a letter to Putin that the Kremlin said contained “concrete measures” on missile defense, trade, and other issues.

Lavrov has told reporters Russia’s response will depend, in part, on the outcome of Kerry’s visit to Russia. 

Civil Society Concerns

Kerry may also try to downplay the blow to relations caused by last month’s publication of the “Magnitsky list.” The U.S. move sanctioned Russian officials over alleged human rights abuses and prompted a retaliatory blacklist from Moscow. Russia has also banned U.S. adoptions in response.

On May 8, Kerry will meet members of Russia’s beleaguered civil society at the home of U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul.

Washington has been critical of the deepening crackdown on NGOs under Putin, including legislation mandating that they register as “foreign agents” if they receive funding from the United States or other countries.

Kerry’s visit will also help set the stage for upcoming talks between Obama and Putin on the sidelines of the G8 summit in June and during a bilateral summit in St. Petersburg in September.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Russia blocks probe into Syrian refugee camps

Russia and China have rejected UN Security Council plans to inspect Syrian refugee camps in Jordan, citing it as a potential attempt to prepare for “foreign intervention” in Syria, where government forces are trying to crush a two-year-old uprising.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow and Beijing opposed the move on Friday, a day after 15 Security Council member nations discussed the possibility of sending a delegation to visit the camps.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) “is competent for [organising] visits of refugee camps that have been set by the UN, the Security Council has no competence for that,” Lavrov said in Slovenia.

He added: “If there was an attempt to use the Syrian refugee situation to push forward some ideas about no-fly zones, then we and China might have seen in it an attempt to prepare a foreign intervention.”

Jordan this week warned that the growing exodus of Syrian refugees who had flooded over its border to escape civil war -already more than 500,000 – was placing a “crushing weight” on the country.

The UNHCR has said the number of refugees in Jordan could reach 1.2 million by the end of the year – equivalent to one fifth of the Jordanian population.

There are also hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in other neighbouring countries including Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq.

Moscow and Beijing, two close allies of Damascus, have vetoed a series of UN resolutions that threatened sanctions against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over alleged atrocities during the conflict.

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Russia, Pakistan and Iran Top ‘Risk List’ for Journalists

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the US-based press monitoring group, has issued a “CPJ Risk List” of the 10 countries where press freedom suffered the most in 2012 through “fatalities, impunity, imprisonment, censorship, restrictive laws, and exiled journalists.”

The list includes Iran, Pakistan and Russia, all countries within RFE/RL’s broadcast region.

CPJ’s findings track with RFE/RL’s annual incident report documenting attacks against its journalists in 2012.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Russia Says Chemical Weapons No Pretext For Syria Intervention

A top adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin says claims that chemical weapons have been used in Syria should not become a pretext for foreign military intervention in the country.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, Putin’s Middle East envoy, was speaking in Beirut.

Also on April 27, Syria’s Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi called Western suspicions that Damascus has used chemical weapons “a bald-faced lie.”

The remarks come a day after U.S. President Barack Obama warned Damascus that any use of chemical weapons would be a “game changer” in how Washington views the Syria crisis.

On April 25, U.S. officials said for the first time there was evidence the Syrian regime had likely used chemical weapons in small quantities but that more investigation was necessary to confirm the suspicions.

Based on reporting by AFP and Interfax

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

U.S. Lawmakers Urge Closer Security Cooperation With Russia After Boston Attack

WASHINGTON — A U.S. Congressional panel has urged greater security cooperation between Washington and Moscow in the wake of the April 15 Boston Marathon attack.

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (Republican-California) said, “Greater cooperation with Russia and the governments of Central Asia should be explored in order to properly understand and respond to the emerging threat [of Islamic extremism]” in the region.

He was chairing an April 26 subcommittee hearing in the House Foreign Affairs Committee titled, “Islamist Extremism in Chechnya: A Threat to the U.S. Homeland?”

Congressman William Keating (Democrat-Massachusetts) said, “There is, undoubtedly, a delicate balance between cooperation with Russia on counterterrorism and concern over Russia’s human rights abuses, but in no way should this hinder working together to protect the lives of innocent people.”

Russian officials raised concern about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of two ethnic Chechen brothers suspected in the Boston bombings, to both the FBI and the CIA in 2011.

The fact has led to questions as to why they were not stopped.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Russia Studying U.S. Missile Defense Plans, Still Wants Guarantees

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said Moscow is studying proposed changes to the U.S. missile defense program, but still wants guarantees that the system would not be used against Russia.

“We are now studying the proposals we received from the U.S. side recently on the further development of our dialogue on missile defense,” he told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels

Lavrov met with NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on April 23, and also held bilateral talks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Also in Brussels, called for Russia “to embrace the constructive approach to missile defense.”

The Pentagon said last month that it would station additional missile interceptors in Alaska in response to North Korean threats and at the same time forgo a new type of interceptor that could have been deployed in Europe and which Russia believed could be used to shoot down its strategic missiles.

The NATO ministers also discussed the situation in Syria, and NATO Secretary-General Rasmussen said the alliance is “extremely concerned” about the possible use of chemical weapons there.

Lavrov said any reports that chemical weapons have been used in Syria should be investigated by experts on the ground.

The government and rebels in Syria have accused each other of using chemical weapons, and Lavrov said attempts to politicize a UN probe were unacceptable.

Kerry said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a telephone conversation on April 23 had not been able to confirm comments by senior Israeli army officials claiming that Syrian government forces had used chemical weapons against rebels.

Washington has said that the use of chemical weapons by government forces would be crossing a red line in the Syrian conflict, which would require action by the international community.

NATO ministers also discussed NATO’s planned withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014.

Rasmussen said that after the withdrawal, “We will not walk away, our engagement will enter a new and different chapter.”

With reporting by Reuters, dpa, and Interfax

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Rights Court Urges Russia Not To Extradite Tajik

The European Court of Human Rights has urged Russia not to extradite to Dushanbe a Tajik citizen facing religious extremism charges.

The court said on April 18 that sending Ismon Azimov to Tajikistan would subject him to the risk of ill-treatment.

Amnesty International has said Tajikistan routinely subjects prisoners to extreme abuse, including torture.

Azimov is accused of being a member of the banned Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU).

Tajik prosecutors also have charged Azimov with plotting an attack on a provincial police headquarters in the northern city of Khujand, which killed four people in March 2010.

Azimov denies the charges.

He was arrested in Russia in 2010 at Tajikistan’s request.

A Russian court has ruled in favor of Azimov’s extradition to Tajikistan.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Karimov Warns Russia Over Growing Dangers Of Extremism

Uzbek President Islam Karimov has warned Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin over the increasing dangers of extremism in Central Asia.

Karimov, who is on a rare trip to Moscow, said the “consequences of the expansion of terrorism, extremism, and religious radicalism could be far worse than open war.”

Russian-Uzbek ties have been strained over Uzbekistan’s decision last year to withdraw for a second time from the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization.

Putin said the two presidents have agreed on the conditions of Uzbekistan’s joining the free trade zone of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Putin said the relevant protocol will be signed during the CIS prime ministers’ meeting in Minsk next month.

Based on reporting by AFP and Interfax

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

US berates Russia for aiding Syria

The United States has denounced Russia’s policy of aiding the Syrian government as “morally bankrupt”, as tensions between Damascus and Ankara escalate over cargo seized from a Syrian passenger plane.

On the ground the Syrian army took a pounding at the hands of rebels in northern Syria on Friday, a monitoring group said.

A rebel offensive killed more than 130 soldiers in two days, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights added, while more than 250 troops were taken prisoner as the rebels advanced.

Victoria Nuland, spokesperson for the US department of state, refused to disclose to reporters what exactly had been in the cargo seized in Turkey on Wednesday, but said “we have no doubt that this was serious military equipment”, aimed at bolstering the government of Bashar al-Assad, Syrian president.

Sergei Lavrov, Russian foreign minister, said, however, that the Syrian Air plane intercepted by Turkey on a flight from Moscow to Damascus was carrying a cargo of dual-purpose radar equipment, and insisted Russia did not violate any laws.

“This cargo is electrical technical equipment for radar stations, this is dual-purpose equipment, but is not forbidden by any international conventions,” Lavrov said.

Nuland acknowledged that Russia had not violated any embargo on Bashar al-Assad and the Damascus government, but said “the policy’s still morally bankrupt”.

“Everybody else on the Security Council is doing what it can unilaterally to ensure that the Assad regime is not getting support from the outside,” she said in Washington.

“We have been saying for almost a year now, that no responsible country ought to be aiding and abetting the war machine of the Assad regime.”

As fighting raged on the ground, the tensions between Syria and Turkey grew.

Turkey scrambled a fighter jet on Friday after a Syrian helicopter attacked the rebel-held town of Azmarin near the border, an official in Ankara told the AFP news agency.

The Syrian foreign ministry accused Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish prime minister, of lying when he said the jet intercepted on Wednesday was carrying Russian military equipment.

Turkey’s allies have warned of the risks embedded in the Syria conflict between the neighbours, which have exchanged cross-border fire amid fears the civil war could spark a regional conflagration.

Amid the growing alarm, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle was due in NATO partner Turkey on Saturday for talks with his counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu.

“It is important that no one pours oil on the fire. We are counting on moderation and de-escalation,” said Westerwelle.

One of the deadliest days

Lakhdar Brahimi, UN-Arab League peace envoy, is also due in Istanbul on Saturday after talks with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah on Friday.

Ahmad Fawzi, Brahimi’s spokesman, said Brahimi and the king agreed “on the dire need to stop the bloodshed and provide humanitarian aid to the more than 2.5 million Syrians” affected by the fighting, and 348,000 plus refugees in neighbouring countries.

The Observatory said Thursday was one of the deadliest days since the anti-regime revolt erupted in March last year, with at least 240 people killed nationwide.

On Friday, government warplanes attacked two buildings in the Idlib town of Maaret al-Numan, where intense fighting has raged since rebels overran it on Tuesday after a fierce 48-hour battle, said the Britain-based Syrian watchdog.

Resupplying the army is “a fundamental aspect of the performance of the military,” said Emile Hokayem, Middle East expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

But he added that regime air supremacy was no longer decisive because the troops have “lost morale”.

According to the Observatory, the rebels took 256 soldiers prisoner in capturing the town of Khirbat al-Joz and nearby areas in Idlib province along the border with Turkey since last week.

And an AFP reporter said the rebels, by seizing a stretch of highway near Maaret al-Numan, were able to cut the route linking Damascus to embattled commercial hub Aleppo on Thursday, choking the flow of troops to the north.

‘Army base caputred’

Rebels told another AFP correspondent in Aleppo that their forces captured a government military site near the city early on Friday. Massive clouds of grey smoke could be seen rising from the site in Al-Tana.

In Aleppo itself, the head of the university hospital, who was accused by the opposition of backing the regime and kidnapped in July, was murdered and his body found on Friday, a friend of the doctor told AFP.

The opposition fighters also attacked a large air force post on the highway connecting Aleppo to Raqa province, further to the east, near Kweris military airport, the Observatory said.

Anti-Assad demonstrations were held across Syria after the weekly Muslim prayers.

In Aleppo, government forces fired on protesters in the Halab al-Jadida district, wounding a number of demonstrators, the Observatory said.

According to Observatory figures, more than 32,000 people have died in Syria since the revolt erupted on March 15, 2012.

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Russia Gaining Foothold in Iraqi Oil

Posted GMT 10-12-2012 22:36:38

MOSCOW (UPI) — Baghdad may send a signal to energy companies working in the Kurdish north by sidelining Exxon Mobil from developments in the south, an industry official said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki arrived in Moscow this week to meet with Russian officials. The Iraqi government timed the approval of an exploration contract in southern Iraq between Russia’s Lukoil and Japan’s Inpex Corp. to coincide with his visit.

Iraq has the fourth-largest oil reserves in the world. A report from the International Energy Agency this week said Iraqi oil production could more than double by 2020 and it could eventually pass Russia as a major oil exporter.

Analysts watching the Iraqi oil sector point to lingering acrimony between Baghdad and the semiautonomous administration in the Kurdish north as reason for concern. Baghdad had said unilateral contracts with the Kurds are illegal.

Baghdad is reportedly considering bringing Lukoil and Gazprom Neft, Gazprom’s oil division, into the West Qurna-2 project in southern Iraq in favor of Exxon. News agency RT, citing an industry insider, reports Baghdad is frustrated with Exxon’s work in the north and could send a signal with the replacement.

Lukoil didn’t reply to RT. Baghdad in April declared a Kurdish deal with U.S. supermajor Exxon frozen because of the legal issue.

Assyrian International News Agency

Russia Says No Weapons On Plane For Syria Stopped By Turkey

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said there were “no weapons” aboard a Syrian passenger airliner that left Moscow bound for Damascus on October 10 and was forced by Turkish warplanes to land in Ankara.

Lavrov says cargo on the plane, which he described as “electronic equipment for radars,” came from a “legal Russian supplier being sent in a legal way to a legal customer.”

Lavrov conceded some of the cargo was “dual purpose” and could have civilian and military uses.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on October 11 that the plane had ammunition and military equipment for the Syrian Defense Ministry.

Syria has also denied there were any weapons on the plane and demanded all material seized in Ankara be returned.

Based on reporting by Reuters, AP, and Interfax

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Suspect In Cleric Shooting Case Detained In Russia

Media reports in Sweden say a suspect in an assassination attempt on a prominent Uzbek cleric has been arrested in Russia.

Imam Obidkhon Qori Nazarov has been hospitalized since he was shot at least three times in Sweden’s town of Stromsund in February.

Nazarov, who has been living in Sweden since he was granted political asylum in 2006, is considered one of the most powerful opponents of Uzbek President Islam Karimov’s regime.

Nazarov’s son, Dovudkhon, confirmed to RFE/RL on October 12 that Swedish investigators had informed him that a man suspected in the attempted murder of his father had been arrested in Russia.

It is not clear when the arrest took place.

Swedish investigators said earlier that an Uzbek citizen, Yury Zhukovsky, 34, might be the one who conducted the attack.

Based on reporting by Espressen and RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Russia demands Turkey explain intercepted jet

Moscow has accused Ankara of endangering Russian lives after Turkey forced a Syrian passenger plane to land and seized what it suspected was military equipment being ferried from Russia to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Damascus said on Thursday the interception of the Syrian Air plane was an act of piracy, further heightening tensions between the neighbours after Turkey’s chief of staff warned his troops would respond with greater force if shells from Syria continued to hit Turkish territory.

Military jets escorted the Damascus-bound Airbus A-320,which was carrying around 30 passengers from Moscow, into Ankara airport late on Wednesday after Turkey received intelligence that it was carrying “non-civilian cargo”.

Russia wades into intercepted jet row  

Russia, which has stood behind Assad’s government during an 18-month-old uprising that has killed some 30,000 people, angrily demanded an explanation.

“The lives and safety of the passengers were placed under threat”, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that 17 of its nationals on board were refused access to Russian diplomatic staff.

‘Control weapons’

Turkey said it had acted within international law.

“We are determined to control weapons transfers to a regime that carries out such brutal massacres against civilians. It is unacceptable that such a transfer is made using our airspace,” Ahmet Davutoglu, Syria’s foreign minister, said.

“We received information this plane was carrying cargo of a nature that could not possibly be in compliance with the rules of civil aviation,” he said in Athens during an official visit.

Meanwhile, Mahmoud Said, Syria’s transport minister, accused Turkey of “air piracy”, according to Lebanon’s Al-Manar television station.

The country has also closed its airspace to Turkish planes, a development that followed Ankara’s declaration that Syrian airspace was “unsafe” for Turkish aircraft.

Russia is one of the closest allies of Assad’s government and has blocked several UN resolutions against Damascus.

“Once a week, a Syrian Airlines airplane flies from Moscow bound for Damascus,” the Interfax news agency quoted Vnukovo Airport spokeswoman Yelena Krylova as saying. “The plane took off normally, there were no incidents.”

An unidentified “Russian arms export source” told Interfax that there were no weapons or military equipment aboard. 

Assad remarks

Assad described Syria and Turkey as “brothers” in an interview published Thursday, saying Turkey “has no reason to go to war” over recent cross-border clashes.

“We should work on this issue together,” he told left-leaning Turkish newspaper Aydinlik , after a week of shelling between the neighbours left several dead.

“In times like this, countries should correct their mistakes by talking to each other. [The] Turkish public is noble. We have no problems with the Turkish people and the Turkish soldiers. Syria is not an enemy to Turkey. We’ve always known Turkey as brothers.”

But the interview, which appeared to be an effort to calm tensions, also carried a rebuke. 

“We have problems with the Turkish government,” said Assad. “We’re having problems along the Turkish border because of the attitude of the Turkish government. [The] Turkish government’s also responsible for the deaths. And the reason the relationship has come to this point is also a fault of the Turkish government. Not the Turkish people.”

The comments were published a day after the grounding of the Syrian passenger jet intercepted en route from Moscow to Damascus

The airliner, carrying some 30 passengers, was allowed to leave Turkey and arrived at its destination.

Pressure maintained

On Wednesday, Turkey’s military chief pledged to keep up the pressure on its southern neighbour – remarks that came a day after NATO said it stood ready to defend Turkey, amid fears of a regional escalation of the conflict.

“We responded and if [the shelling] continues, we will respond with more force,” General Necdet Ozel told reporters after inspecting troops deployed to the 910km border.

Turkey has reinforced the border with artillery and also deployed more fighter jets to the area.

Meanwhile, battles between government forces and opposition fighters continue across Syria.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, urged the Assad administration to declare a unilateral ceasefire, calls which Syria rejected .

Instead, clashes intensified near the Syrian border town of Azmarin and heavy machinegun fire could be heard from Turkey.

Scores of civilians crossed a narrow river marking the border as they fled the fighting in Azmarin and surrounding villages.

Residents from the Turkish village of Hacipasa helped pull them across in small metal boats.

“The firing started getting intense last night. Some people have been killed, some are lying wounded on the road,” said Mune, a 55-year-old woman who fled Azmarin.

“People want to escape but they can’t. Many have settled in a field outside the town and are trying to come.”

The UNHCR says more than 90,000 Syrians are living in camps in southern Turkey.

Hillary Mann Leverett, senior foreign policy lecturer at the American University in Washington, DC, told Al Jazeera that the “increasingly militarised” tension between Turkey and Syria is “very, very destabilising”, with potential for NATO to get involved.

“The precedent is certainly there. NATO got involved pretty quickly in Libya, and the plans are there to become involved in Syria,” said Mann Leverett.

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said on Wednesday that a team of US military planners is in Jordan to help the Amman government grapple with Syrian refugees, bolster its military capabilities and prepare for any trouble with Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles.

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Russia, India Discuss Military Ties

Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov says Moscow has passed to its Indian partners the contract to supply an additional batch of 42 Su-30MKI jet fighters.

Talking to journalists after attending a session of the Indian-Russian intergovernmental military cooperation commission in New Delhi on October 10, Serdyukov said production of the fighter of joint Russian-Indian design might begin by 2020.

Serdyukov also said that, in accordance with bilateral agreements, India will receive about 1,000 Russia-India-designed BrahMos missiles.

The minister also said Russia’s “Vikramaditya” aircraft carrier, formerly the “Admiral Gorshkov,” would be handed over to the Indian Navy in the fourth quarter of 2013.

Serdyukov noted that joint Russian-Indian naval exercises will be held soon off the Indian port of Mumbai.

Based on reporting by ITAR-TASS and Reuters

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Russia Signs Deal To Prolong Troop Presence At Tajik Military Base

Russia and Tajikistan have signed an agreement allowing Russian troops to stay at a military base in Tajikistan until 2042.

The agreement was signed during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Dushanbe.

Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov says it extends a deal signed in 1993, which was due to expire in 2014.

Ushakov said Russia would pay “a symbolic sum” to extend the lease.

Meanwhile, Moscow is allowing more Tajik workers to earn cash in Russia, a source of income that is crucial to Tajikistan’s economy.

Tajikistan and Russia have been negotiating the lease for nearly a year.

About 7,000 troops from Russia’s 201st Motorized Division use three facilities — near Dushanbe and in the southern cities of Kulob and Qurghon-Teppa.

It is the largest foreign deployment of Russian troops.

At the start of their meeting, Putin gave Rahmon a sniper’s rifle to mark the Tajik president’s 60th birthday, which is October 5.

Based on reporting by Reuters and Interfax

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

HRW Says Dangerous For Rights Workers In Russia

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says human rights workers in Russia currently face a “hostile climate” and the situation is becoming worse, pointing to one of HRW’s employees in Russia who has recently received threats sent by text message. 

HRW said on October 4 that senior researcher in Moscow Tanya Lokshina was sent threats from unknown sources “two to five times per day from September 28 to 30, 2012.” 
HWR executive director Kenneth Roth said it was clear from the threats that people were following Lokshina. 

“Tanya Lokshina, the senior researcher in Human Rights Watch’s Moscow office has just received a series of texted threats from unknown sources. These threats demonstrate that the sender clearly was following Tanya’s every move. They knew where she lived, what she was doing,” Roth said.

“They made explicit reference to the fact of her pregnancy, they threatened harm to herself and to her unborn baby. They were clearly made with the intent of scaring Tanya and Human Rights Watch to stop our monitoring and reporting on human rights in Russia.”

HRW said Lokshina worked on a wide range of issues but is widely known as one of Russia’s leading experts on human rights in “Russia’s troubled North Caucasus region.”

Roth said HRW would not allow “threats” to prevent the organization from continuing its work in Russia.

“Human Rights Watch worked in the Soviet Union in the darkest days. We certainly are not going to allow a cheap set of vile and depraved threats of the sort that were sent to Tanya to stand in the way of our continued work today,” Roth said.

Roth said the fact that the threats included confidential information known only to Lokshina and a very small circle of friends suggested information was obtained through surveillance, with the possible involvement of law enforcement and security officials.

Roth said HRW will be aggressive in pursuing these threats with authorities inside Russia and outside that country.

“Human Rights Watch intends to use every available avenue of address both nationally and internationally to ensure that an investigation of vigorous quality is pursued and that the perpetrators behind these threats are brought to justice,” Roth said. ”The climate for human rights advocacy in Russia is as bad as we’ve seen in 20 years.” 

Russia’s Interior Ministry said Lokshina had filed a report with authorities and that “this document will be considered in accordance with the procedures envisioned by the legislation.”
 

With reporting by ITAR-TASS and IFX Rus

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty