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On Wednesday, Vitaly Churkin, the RF ambassador to the UN, said that Russia won’t support any arms embargo on Syria, asking rhetorically, “How can we say that we’ll tear up all of our contracts, sever all our ties with Syria. We won’t agree to any embargo, not even so much as a hint of an embargo”. His remarks echoed those made by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday, who said, “We signed some contracts and contracts must be implemented. We’re arming the constitutional government… we don’t approve of what it’s doing, using force against demonstrators, but we’re not picking sides, we’re implementing our commercial contractual obligations”. In any case, Lavrov said that the arms Russia sells to Syria “aren’t used against demonstrators, but to ensure Syria’s defence”.
Last Wednesday, Sergei Chemezov, the head of the Russian state-controlled arms exporter Rostekhnologii, said that Moscow faced losing its leading position in the Middle East and North African arms market if it failed to maintain arms deliveries to Syria. Lavrov also indicated Russia would veto a draft resolution on Syria that calls on President Bashar Assad to step down and provides for “further measures” if he refuses. The European-Arab draft, to be presented to the UN Security Council in two weeks, is due to be debated at the Security Council later on Tuesday. Russia has been one of Assad’s staunchest supporters during the ten-month-long uprising against his regime. Moscow proposed its own draft UN resolution on Syria, but Western members of the Security Council criticised it for being too soft. At least 5,400 people have been killed in the government’s 10-month crackdown on protesters, according to the UN. Syrian authorities blame the violence on armed gangs affiliated with al-Qaeda and say more than 2,000 soldiers and police have been killed.
1 February 2012
RIA-Novosti
Voices from Russia 
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