Russian Information Agency Novosti
September 3, 2013
US Shows Its Determination to Start Syria War – Russian MP
USS Nimitz
MOSCOW: By redeploying its USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and four other ships, the United States shows its determination to start a military campaign in Syria, a senior Russian lawmaker has said.
Reuters reported on Monday, citing unnamed defense officials, that the Nimitz and supporting ships entered the Red Sea at about 10:00 GMT. The task force, however, had not received any orders to move into the Mediterranean, where five U.S. destroyers and an amphibious ship, the USS San Antonio, remain poised for possible cruise missile strikes against Syria.
“By sending the Nimitz nucelear aircraft carrier to Syria’s shores, Obama demonstrates that the military action has been postponed, but not cancelled, and that he is determined to start a war,” said Alexei Pushkov, who heads the international affairs committee in the lower chamber of the Russian parliament, the State Duma.
US President Barack Obama on Saturday formally requested the Congress to approve a military operation in Syria. In a statement from the White House Rose Garden, Obama said he had decided that the United States should take military action against targets in Syria, reiterating US assertions that the government of President Bashar Assad was to blame for the apparent use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war.
Syrian President Bashar Assad on Monday compared the situation in Syria to “a barrel of gunpowder, to which a fire is approaching.”
“Nobody knows what would happen [after the US strike]. Everyone will lose control of the situation when this gunpowder barrel explodes. Chaos and extremism will spread, and there is a risk that the whole region will plunge into a war,” he said.
Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah group, a close ally of Assad’s regime said it was mobilizing and redeploying its forces to prepare for a potential US military action, Agence France-Presse said. Citing the Al-Akhbar daily, close to both Hezbollah and the Syrian regime, the agency said the group had “called on all its officers and members to man their positions.”
Hezbollah members have long been fighting alongside Syrian troops and against rebels seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.
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Interfax
September 2, 2013
Russian lawmakers will go to U.S. if congressmen are willing to discuss Syria – Duma deputy
MOSCOW: A trip of Russian lawmakers to the U.S. will depend on whether the U.S. congressmen are prepared to maintain a dialogue on Syria, Russian State Duma international affairs committee head Alexei Pushkov said.
“This issue will be discussed with the U.S. side in the near future, and if it agrees to such a visit and the U.S. Congress is ready for a dialogue on Syria, a Russian delegation will hold negotiations on the matter with U.S. congressmen in the near future,” Pushkov’s press service quoted him as saying in commenting on reports that Federation Council Chairperson Valentina Matviyenko and State Duma Chairperson Sergei Naryshkin proposed sending a joint Russian parliamentary delegation to the U.S. to discuss Syria with U.S. congressmen, and President Vladimir Putin approved of the proposal.
“A delegation is currently being formed of State Duma and Federation Council members, which will be ready to fly to the U.S.,” Pushkov said.
Pushkov’s press service said the delegation’s composition will be announced on Tuesday.
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Itar-Tass
September 2, 2013
Sergei Lavrov: If US uses force against Syria, Geneva II to be in limbo
MOSCOW: If the United States uses force against Syria, the international conference on the resolution of the Syrian conflict commonly known as Geneva II will be thrown far back or may not even be held at all, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
“I have strong doubts that the opposition will become more compliant after a strike. If the action announced by the U.S. president takes place to our profound regret, it will throw the forum far back, if not forever,” Lavrov said after talks with his South African colleague Maite Nkoana-Mashabane on Monday, September 2.
“But political settlement will prevail in some other form anyway. It’s just we have to understand that the more we delay it, the more casualties we will see among civilians,” the minister said.
Nkoana-Mashabane agreed that Geneva II would be the only solution to the Syrian crisis.
At their talks in Moscow on May 7, Lavrov and Kerry agreed to hold an international conference on the basis of the Geneva Communique of June 30, 2012, in order to try to overcome the crisis in Syria.
Lavrov and Kerry said that their countries would encourage both the Syrian government and opposition groups to look for a political solution.
As the Joint Special Envoy of the United Nations and the League of Arab States for the Syrian Crisis, Brahimi has consistently called on the U.S. and Russia to exercise leadership and work together to initiate a process to implement the Geneva Declaration of June 30, 2012.
That document – issued after a meeting in the Swiss city of the Action Group for Syria – lays out key steps in a process to end the violence. Among other items, it calls for the establishment of a transitional governing body, with full executive powers and made up by members of the present Government and the opposition and other groups, as part of agreed principles and guidelines for a Syrian-led political transition.
Russia remains convinced that there is no alternative to a political settlement in Syria, Lavrov said.
Russian and American experts were scheduled to meet in The Hague on August 28 to prepare the international conference on Syria, commonly referred to Geneva II. But the meeting did not take place.
“We should, against all the odds, seek the earliest convocation of the Geneva II conference in accordance with the Russian-U.S. initiative adopted on May 7 of this year,” Lavrov said earlier.
“We need to do everything to move towards realisation of the assigned goals: the unification of efforts of the Syrian government and opposition to eradicate terrorism and oust terrorists from Syria,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
“The government and opposition should reach an agreement in principle on how a transition period should take place in Syria. It should be based on common accord between the government and the opposition,” Lavrov said.
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