Times of IsraelNegotiations between Russia and Syria on the supervision arrangement, which seem to have drastically reduced the likelihood of US-led military intervention in Syria, have been ongoing for two full weeks, and have also involved Iran, the Israeli Channel 2 report said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, determined to ensure that his ally Assad not face a punitive US-led strike following Damascus’s alleged use of chemical weapons in an August 21 attack that the US says killed over 1,400 Syrians, essentially ordered Assad to submit to international oversight of his chemical weapons stocks, the report said.
In return, Putin promised bolstered conventional weapons shipments, “some of which are already on their way” to Syria from the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. The TV report did not specify which weaponry Putin is supplying to Assad, but noted that the Syrian regime needs more fighter planes for use to quash rebel forces, spare parts for tanks, and all kinds of other military equipment to replenish stocks depleted during the two-and-a-half years of fighting that have left well over 100,000 Syrians dead. An estimated 1,600 Syrians have died in the three weeks since the alleged August 21 attack.
Last summer, Russia said it would not deliver weapons including 24 MiG-29 fighter jets ordered by the Syrian Air Force until the Syrian crisis ended. But in May, Russian officials said a Syrian delegation was in Moscow to discuss a new contract to supply combat aircraft.
Putin said late Tuesday that he hoped “our Syrian friends will make the appropriate decision with respect to transferring the chemical weapons to the control of the international community, and to joining the treaty preventing the proliferation of chemical weapons.”
Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Moallem, who has been in Moscow this week, was quoted Tuesday saying Syria would indeed open all relevant sites to UN inspectors, would not produce chemical weapons, and would sign all relevant treaties.
“We fully support Russia’s initiative concerning chemical weapons in Syria, and we are ready to cooperate. As a part of the plan, we intend to join the Chemical Weapons Convention,” he said in an interview with the Lebanon-based Al-Maydeen TV.
“We are ready to fulfill our obligations in compliance with this treaty, including through the provision of information about our chemical weapons. We will open our storage sites, and cease production. We are ready to open these facilities to Russia, other countries and the United Nations.”
“We intend to give up chemical weapons altogether,” he added.
US President Barack Obama said in a series of TV interviews Monday that a deal that ensured Syria was unable to again use chemical weapons would “absolutely” roll the crisis back from the brink. His Secretary of State John Kerry warned Tuesday, however, that such a deal had to be “measureable, tangible” and speedy. “If we choose not to act, we’ll be sending a message to Iran of American ambivalence, American weakness,” the secretary noted.
Israel’s former foreign minister, Avigdor Liberman, indicated Tuesday a similar concern. Speaking against the background of the negotiations that were apparently pushing off any US-led strike on Assad’s regime, Liberman, the chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, noted that, where Iran’s nuclear program was concerned, Israel “will have to deal with it on our own.”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/putin-shipping-assad-more-weapons-to-crush-rebels/
Well we have to look at this properly, the only thing really stopping the US from walking in, is either Putin drawing the line in the sand or Assad’s chemical and biological weapons and I was pondering whether Assad’s biological agents are included in the deal agreed with Putin.
The hawks and Israel/Saudi Arabia are watching Syria slip out of their grasp so they want to quickly ratchet up the tensions either to provoke Assad to use more brutal responses e.g. chemical weapons or to make some sort of solid regain of the recently lost territory which came about when the Syrian army with Hezbollah and others literally smashed whole areas back into Assad’s control and the rebels haven’t stopped bleating ever since. Interestingly as well is that I suspect the Chinese now have units on the ground and if this is true it will be the first non Asian theatre for Chinese troops or forces and I also suspect that between the two outside nations they will keep Assad’s command and control structures outside of the rebels range.
I was bang on the money about the bait and switch thing as well, just as it seems the US is getting focused again, North Korea starts up without any reason its reactors which will cause a resource dilemma for Obama who will have to due to treaty obligations send back some of the naval units lurking around Syrian shores, watch then as NK begins to pan out and Iran will rattle its sabres and you have got to admire Putin at this as he is orchestrating it like a finely timed piece of clockwork because he and his counterpart in China know full bloody well that the continued race to face each crisis, the enhanced alert levels and troop readiness, the huge logistics surrounding that as well as keeping the naval units topped up is costing America fortunes and Putin is well aware that the US is again very close to its debt ceiling and all he has to do is keep that constant drip drip drip, the death of a thousand cuts economically going and it could be that the US topples into the abyss without another shot fired.
My favorite new source. Times of Zionism. Thanks…
Go JD. Thanks for standing up for us. Got the video of your speech. Inspiring hero! Thank you!!!!!