Russian President Vladimir Putin and Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron arrive to address the media after their meeting in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, yesterday.
MOSCOW/damascus: Russia and Britain agreed yesterday to work towards a transitional government in Syria, despite acknowledging differences in their approach to the Middle Eastern country’s civil war.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said after talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi that they had agreed “that as permanent members of the UN we must help drive this process”.
He said international efforts envisaged “not just bringing the regime and opposition together at one negotiating table, but Britain, Russia, America and other countries helping shape a transitional government that all Syrians can trust to protect them.”
Russia has been under pressure to cooperate more with Western powers at the United Nations Security Council on ending the bloodshed. Moscow has supported President Bashar Al Assad’s government and supplied it with weapons, but agreed with the United States this week to help bring the warring sides together for an international conference on ending the bloodshed.
“We have a common interest in the quickest end to the violence and the initiation of a peace process, and the preservation of Syria as a territorially whole sovereign state,” Putin said after the talks.
“On the initiative of the British prime minister, we discussed possible options for positive developments of this process and about a number of possible joint steps,” Putin added, He gave no details the proposed steps.
Russia’s foreign minister said yesterday Moscow had no new plans to sell an advanced air defence system to the government of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, but left open the possibility that it could ship such systems to Damascus under an existing contract.
The Wall Street Journal this week reported that Israel had informed the United States a Russian deal was imminent to sell S-300 missile systems that would significantly boost Syria’s ability to stave off outside intervention in its civil war.
Asked by a journalist about the reports on a visit to the Polish capital, Lavrov said: “Russia is not planning to sell. Russia already sold them a long time ago. It has signed the contracts and is completing deliveries, in line with the agreed contracts, of equipment which is anti-aircraft technology.”
The question referred to S-300 systems, but Lavrov in his reply did not specify whether the equipment already being delivered were S-300 complexes or another system. He said the deliveries were in line with international law and for self-defence only.
Iran backs meeting
Iran’s Vice President Mohammad-Javad Mohammadizadeh said in Geneva yesterday that his country welcomes a US-Russian proposal for an international conference on ending the conflict in Syria.
“We hope that the coming meeting would also be in Geneva and the Islamic Republic of Iran would be more than happy and pleased to assist in whatever way that it can, and we expect to be part of the process to restore peace and a better livelihood to the people of Syria,” he said.
Russia and the United States agreed at talks on Tuesday to try to arrange the conference, possibly by the end of this month.
The United Nations in Geneva hosted a meeting on Syria in June 2012, where Iran’s wish to attend became a bone of contention between Washington and Moscow. No venue has been confirmed but Kerry has talked of a “Geneva two” meeting.
Meanwhile, 25 people were killed in army shelling in the central Syrian town of Halfayeh yesterday after a months-old local truce between the army and rebels fighters broke down, opposition activists said.
Halfayeh has been in rebel hands for more than five months and a truce was agreed there between the warring parties in an attempt to protect thousands of citizens, an activist from the region who called himself Safi Al Hamawi said. But President Assad’s forces issued an ultimatum to the town’s elders saying the rebels must leave by Thursday evening and started shelling it heavily as the deadline passed, Hamawi said.
Reuters
