Putin won’t exclude support for strikes
Print Edition
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West against taking one-sided action in Syria but also said he “doesn’t exclude” supporting a UN resolution on punitive military strikes if it is proved Damascus used poison gas on its own people.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press and Russia’s state Channel 1 television, Putin said Moscow had provided some components of the S-300 air defense missile system to Syria but has frozen further shipments. He suggested that Russia may sell the potent missile systems elsewhere if Western nations attack Syria without UN Security Council backing.
Putin said it was “ludicrous” that the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad would use chemical weapons at a time when it was holding sway against the rebels.
“From our viewpoint, it seems absolutely absurd that the armed forces — the regular armed forces, which are on the offensive today and in some areas have encircled the so-called rebels and are finishing them off — that in these conditions they would start using forbidden chemical weapons while realizing quite well that it could serve as a pretext for applying sanctions against them, including the use of force,” he said.
The Obama administration says 1,429 people died in an August 21 attack in a Damascus suburb. Casualty estimates by other groups are far lower, and Assad’s government blames the episode on rebels.
A UN inspection team is awaiting lab results on tissue and soil samples it collected while it was in Syria before completing a report.
Obama expressed frustration at Russia’s position, saying: “It has been very difficult to get Russia, working through the Security Council, to acknowledge some of the terrible behavior of the Assad regime.”
Putin, however, said the US had failed to make its case through the proper channels.
“If there is evidence that chemical weapons have been used, and used specifically by the regular army, this evidence should be submitted to the UN Security Council,” said Putin. “And it ought to be convincing. It shouldn’t be based on some rumors and information obtained by intelligence agencies through some kind of eavesdropping, some conversations and things like that.”
He noted that even in the US “there are experts who believe that the evidence presented by the administration doesn’t look convincing, and they don’t exclude the possibility that the opposition conducted a premeditated, provocative action trying to give their sponsors a pretext for military intervention.”
He compared the evidence to false data about weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 Iraq invasion. “All these arguments turned out to be untenable, but they were used to launch a military action, which many in the US called a mistake. Did we forget about that?” Putin said.
He said it was premature to talk about what Russia would do if the US attacked Syria.
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