Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Friday, 22 June 2012


Messages In This Digest (7 Messages)

Messages

1.

Iraq: NATO Forges New Strategic Partnership In Persian Gulf

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com   rwrozoff

Wed Jun 20, 2012 5:58 pm (PDT)



http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/iraq-nato-forges-new-strategic-partnership-in-persian-gulf/

Stop NATO
June 20, 2012

Iraq: NATO Forges New Strategic Partnership In Persian Gulf
Rick Rozoff

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization announced on June 20 that it has opened what it terms a Transition Cell in Iraq "to smooth the path towards strengthened partnership and cooperation."

The decision to do so was reached at the May 20-21 summit of the Western military bloc in Chicago.

The initiative follows eight years of the NATO Training Mission-Iraq [1], established in 2004 under the control of NATO's top political body, the North Atlantic Council, and in conjunction with the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq. The first commander of both the training mission and the command was David Petraeus, who set up both operations and who subsequently was in charge of U.S. Central Command, then of all U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan and is now director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The announcement by NATO that it was continuing and deepening military cooperation with the government and military of Iraq came a day after a Saudi deputy foreign minister visited NATO Headquarters to strengthen strategic relations with the alliance and NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen urged the Persian Gulf military powerhouse join the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative. [2]

On the same day NATO announced that Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow would arrive in Israel for a two-day visit to meet with senior government officials and on June 20 leave for Jordan to meet with Prince Faisal bin Hussein, Prime Minister Al-Tarawnah and Chief of Defense Staff General Al-Zaben and deliver a keynote address at a conference titled "NATO in the new global security era."

Israel and Jordan are members of NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue military partnership along with Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, with Libya slated to be the next addition.

Ahead of the Chicago summit NATO disclosed a new, geographically unlimited, category of military cooperation it calls partners across the globe, and identified its first eight members as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mongolia, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea.

In March Mongolia, bordering Russia to its north and China to its south, was the first nation to be granted another new NATO partnership, the Individual Partnership and Cooperation Programme.

On June 20 NATO announced that within months Iraq's Individual Partnership and Cooperation Programme will be finalized.

Last October, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq stated American military trainers, as many as 5,000, might be allowed to remain in his country under the auspices of the NATO Training Mission-Iraq, but NATO's insistence on immunity from prosecution for its personnel led to the mission being terminated on December 31.

Nevertheless, the U.S.-dominated military organization trained over 5,000 Iraqi officers and soldiers and more than 11,000 security personnel, members of the Iraqi Federal Police and Oil Police.

The NATO Training Mission-Iraq conducted English language courses in Iraq and training courses for senior officers at the Iraqi Defence University for Military Studies and the Iraqi War College as well as abroad at the NATO Joint Warfare Centre in Stavanger, Norway.

Two years ago American Lieutenant General Michael Barbero was quoted on the NATO Training Mission-Iraq website stating: “NATO advisors and mentors are shaping the future leadership of the Iraqi Army, at all levels, from the Basic Officer Commissioning Course, to the Joint Staff and Command College, the Iraqi War College, and the Iraqi National Defence College.”

If the West can't control how Iraqis vote and thus their government, NATO can leave behind a foreign-trained officer corps as a Trojan horse for use as needed in a country flanked by Syria in the west and Iran in the east.

1) Iraq: NATO Assists In Building New Middle East Proxy Army
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/iraq-nato-assists-in-building-new-middle-east-proxy-army/

2) Saudi Arabia: Persian Gulf Of Strategic Interest To NATO
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/saudi-arabia-persian-gulf-of-strategic-interest-to-nato/

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2.

Interview: Why Does U.S. Provoke Russia?

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com   rwrozoff

Wed Jun 20, 2012 5:58 pm (PDT)



http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_06_20/78747383/

Voice of Russia
June 20, 2012

Why does US provoke Russia?
John Robles
Recorded on June 16, 2012

Audio at URL above

Recent statements by Hillary Clinton regarding Syria and the Russian Federation are a provocation or not?

Hello, this is John Robles. You are listening to an interview with Rick Rozoff, the manager and the owner of the Stop NATO website and mailing list and a regular contributor to the Voice of Russia.

I’d like to talk to you about the recent statements by Hillary Clinton regarding Syria and the Russian Federation and the seeming provocation by the U.S.

You are referring of course to the incident earlier this week when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused Russia of sending helicopter gunships to Syria, more or less in her words for the express and exclusive intent of murdering Syrian civilians. You know an absurd contention but a very dangerous provocation.

Why do you think the U.S. is set on, it seems to me, provoking Russia?

You're using the right word. These are actions that usually, ordinarily rather, are employed against a nation with which the U.S. is at loggerheads and is considering potential hostile actions against. This is wild rhetoric, it's reckless, it’s unjustified of course and it’s not even so much evocative of the Cold War period; in many ways it is even worse than some of what we heard during even the most stressful years of the Cold War.

Why is the U.S. taunting Russia, why is it challenging it, why is it attempting to discredit and humiliate it? I think I am using the right verbs. I can only say that Russia, by standing its ground and maintaining its position on the territorial integrity and sovereignty of nations and continuing to oppose unilateral and lawless intervention, military intervention in the first place, into the internal affairs of sovereign nations, is an obstacle to U.S. plans for extending its military and political influence globally and to affect in the specific case of Syria and other nations so-called regime change to bring about a geopolitical configuration more favorable to the United States. Russia is standing on the way of that, then, has to be condemned and excoriated by the United States in an effort to win international support against Russia. And any fabrication, any exaggeration, any outright lie that serves that purpose, will be something that U.S.
government officials will not hesitate to employ.

What kind of things are they saying in the U.S. press about Russia right now?

We are seeing the gutter journalism mill churned up of course. There was an article in the Los Angeles Times yesterday by a regular contributor that has a statement to the effect that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions in Syria in supporting tyranny and dictatorship and so forth are in his genes, that is presumably that as a Russian he is genetically programmed to support genocide and dictatorship and so force.

This was in U.S. press?

This was in the Los Angeles Times, one of the major dailies in the United States. And the fact that filth like this can be published quite openly, and uncontested evidently, is something that truthfully I don’t recall during the Cold War where the U.S. government and its obedient mass media at least attempted to draw a distinction between, let’s say, the Soviet government and the people of the Soviet Union. Now, evidently the actions of the Russian government are attributed to some genetic deficiency within the Russian people. This is horrific, it’s almost evocative of the Hitler period.

Hillary Clinton, as she decided to make some serious anti-Russian remarks during a press conference at the Brookings Institute, you wrote something about the fact that in the background there was an Israeli flag. Do you think it was done on purpose and how was it played out in the Arab countries?

These are both very penetrating questions, so I’ll attempt to answer them. She was speaking at the Brookings Institution, which has given the Barack Obama administration amongst other personnel, on leave from the Brookings Institution, Dr. Susan Rice, who is the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Ivo Daalder who is the  U.S. ambassador to NATO and other officials, so that is a venue dear to the likes of Hillary Clinton but she was speaking with Israeli President Shimon Peres and that was the occasion presumably for the Israeli flag being in the background, though I didn’t see an American flag.

She was sitting down when she made the wild accusation that Russia was sending helicopter gunships to be used against Syrian civilians, because that’s what she stated, and in the meantime incidentally waving her arm in the air and almost shaking her fist, I guess for rhetorical effect. The irony or the fact that anyone watching that on Youtube throughout the world and particularly in the Arab world watching her make one of her more provocative statements to date in relation to Russia as she is all but draped in the Israeli flag would certainly send a message other than what she intended I suppose, unless it was intended as you imply. And I certainly can’t answer that.

But we do have to recall that her comment is not an isolated one. It was backed up by her spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, spokesman for the State Department, former U.S. ambassador to NATO incidentally. It was backed up by Jay Carney, White House spokesman, and others who have immediately afterwards made comparable statements indicting Russia for an event that as we now know never occurred.

Every few years there seems to be an intensification of the Russia-baiting initiative. It's generally stirred up the press in the United States and perhaps even more so in Britain. There have been recent articles in the Daily Telegraph, there have been some in recent months in the Guardian, including by Simon Tisdall, who's their deputy editor, and it’s the worst sort of anti-Russian vitriol that, again, I have seen since the Cold War and perhaps worse than anything I saw during that period, and it is clear that the U.S. wants to complete its transformation of the Middle East as they would perhaps refer to as. That is, the overthrow of secular, non-monarchical governments in Arab countries in favor of the U.S.’s dearest military client in the world right now – Saudi Arabia - with whom it signed a $60 billion arms deal late last year as your listeners will recall, which by my calculations is probably the largest bilateral military weapons package in
human history, and the fact that the democracy-loving and freedom-promoting and so forth United States (those are all in italics, ironic italics) is siding with the likes of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and other monarchic, theocratic regimes in the Persian Gulf and working hand-in-glove with them, much as the United States and Saudi Arabia did against Afghanistan starting since 1978, when the Saudis provided the funds and not a few fighters for the Mujahideen war and the United States provided weapons and advisers.

And we seem to see a resumption of that bilateral strategic, or geostrategic, alliance between United States and Saudi Arabia. Russia stands in the way. First of all, Russia’s government is very principled is demanding adherence to international law, to particularly non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign nations as we’ve talked about, and the United States is the opposite. They feel emboldened to, feel driven by, I would add, the need to interfere in and topple the governments of any number of countries in the world, and because these two nations, Russia and the United States, are so fundamentally opposed on that key principle of international relations, then the United States has to isolate, has to discredit and has to politically if not otherwise crush Russia in order to have its position become the dominant one, one that is uncontested.

Thank you.

You were listening to the interview with Rick Rozoff, the manager and the owner of the Stop NATO website and mailing list and a regular contributor to the Voice of Russia.
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3a.

Kosovo What is it for?

Posted by: "Paul Stephens" greateco@gmail.com   cascogreens

Wed Jun 20, 2012 5:59 pm (PDT)



It all started to make sense to me when I learned that the Caspian Pipeline
goes right through there. And even more outrageous, it's 40% owned by
Statoil, the Norwegian state oil company. So, Norway's participation in
NATO is highly suspect, and more resembles Breivik's "crusade" than the
Peace Prize they award.
3b.

Re: Kosovo What is it for?

Posted by: "Richard Roper" richard_roper@yahoo.com  richard_roper

Thu Jun 21, 2012 9:03 am (PDT)



Yes, in early 1999 it got out in Britain that the oil and gas pipelines would go through there, and indeed it would be a terminal for various branches going west.

There was a programme on the prominent British current affairs proogramme in 1998 that the Straits at Constantinople was too small for supertankers and a new pipleine would have to be built.

Zbigniew Brisinski stated a strategic energy corridor must be gained from Jugoslavia to Sinkiang and they had 10years to do it.

I remeber I had violent arguments at the time with "Peace Activists" in the peace movement who insisted there was to be no such pipeline.





--- On Thu, 21/6/12, Paul Stephens <greateco@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Paul Stephens <greateco@gmail.com>
Subject: [stopnato] Kosovo What is it for?
To: stopnato@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, 21 June, 2012, 0:01

 

It all started to make sense to me when I learned that the Caspian Pipeline goes right through there.  And even more outrageous, it's 40% owned by Statoil, the Norwegian state oil company.  So, Norway's participation in NATO is highly suspect, and more resembles Breivik's "crusade" than the Peace Prize they award.
4.

Syria Is West's Way Station En Route To Iran And Russia

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com   rwrozoff

Wed Jun 20, 2012 7:31 pm (PDT)



http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_06_20/78744361/

Voice Russia
June 20, 2012

Syria – Iran – Russia: is the West ready for any kind of compromise?
Dmitry Babich

====

Western proven arms’ sales to Saudi Arabia, Iran’s enemy and one of the perpetrators of the revolt in Syria, somehow attract a lot less attention in the global media than Russia’s alleged arms shipments to Syria, even though Saudi Arabia makes little secret of its intention to pass a lot of their newly bought weapons to Syrian rebels.

Somehow, the rearmament of the Gulf states, Bahrain’s repressions against its Shia majority and direct military aid from Qatar and Saudi Arabia to the Syrian opposition do not make headlines in the West. But movements of Russian marines’ vessels in the Black Sea do.

What is important for Russia and for the majority of other countries of the world is the question: are Western leaders going to compromise on any of their “revolutionary” plans for the Middle East?

====

       
The flurry of news around Syria and Iran might look chaotic at first glance, but as pieces slowly form the puzzle, the “big picture” is becoming more or less clear.

Syria is just a transitory object for Western pressure. The real long-term targets are Iran and in future, most probably, Russia. Fruitless talks on the Iranian nuclear program in Moscow and the still raging Western media campaign on presumed deliveries of Russian arms to Syria reveal the general vector of the strategies of the US and the EU better than any official statements. The question remains, although: are the United States and the European Union ready for ANY kind of compromise?

Talks between the EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jallili ended in Moscow with no result in terms of nuclear security. But, obviously, the results desired by the EU and the United States lay in a very different field. Catherine Ashton’s spokesman, Michael Mann, told reporters in Moscow that there remained “no doubt” that economic sanctions, imposed on Iran by the EU, will gain full force on July 1, as scheduled. After two days of intense talks in Moscow, the EU diplomats can say that they did everything possible to avert confrontation with Iran. And Michael Mann indicated that the EU wanted to see some steps from the Iranian side before it would compromise itself.

What can those steps be? Obviously, Iran, seeing the developments in Syria, its ally which is facing an attempt of a foreign-sponsored “regime change,” may be tempted to protect its sovereignty by all possible means. So, the Syrian example, instead of dissuading Iran from the “nuclear option” for its defense, may work in a counterproductive way, encouraging Iran to arm itself in order to avoid the fate of Syria or something even worse. The situation is entering a vicious circle: the more Western powers increase their pressure on Iran and Syria, the more Tehran may be tempted to try the last resort. Economic deprivation does not help neither.

“The West is directing its efforts to weakening the Iranian regime,” said Sergei Demidenko, an expert of the Moscow-based Institute for Strategic Analysis. “Right now, anticipation of war can be even more damaging for Iran than war itself. The West is scaring Iran so that it would spend all its money on defense.”

Western proven arms’ sales to Saudi Arabia, Iran’s enemy and one of the perpetrators of the revolt in Syria, somehow attract a lot less attention in the global media than Russia’s alleged arms shipments to Syria, even though Saudi Arabia makes little secret of its intention to pass a lot of their newly bought weapons to Syrian rebels. Saudi Arabia’s recent contract with Germany, formalizing the sales of 600-800 German made tanks to Riyadh, did not awaken any concerns, even though similar sales in the 1990s, made in a legally incorrect way with some help from corrupt officials, had prompted one of Germany’s biggest journalist investigations against Helmuth Kohl’s government several years ago.

Saudi Arabia’a growing military might gives Iran one more reason to rearm, since the Sunni-dominated Saudi monarchy is known for its animosity to Iran, a traditional realm of the Shia branch of Islam. A few months ago, Wikileaks divulged American diplomatic cables on Saudi king Abdullah’s intention “to cut the head of the [Iranian] snake.” History does not provide Iran with a feeling of security: it is also widely known that the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was supported in his 1980 aggression against Iran by Saudi Arabia and most of the “oil monarchies” of the Persian Gulf. Wikileaks’ revelations, depicting the events in the Middle East as a Sunni-Shia conflict and not as “a march for democracy” could be one of the main reasons why its former head Julian Assange preferred asylum in the Ecuadoran embassy to possible extradition to the United States.

Somehow, the rearmament of the Gulf states, Bahrain’s repressions against its Shia majority and direct military aid from Qatar and Saudi Arabia to the Syrian opposition do not make headlines in the West. But movements of Russian marines’ vessels in the Black Sea do.

Several newspapers, including Russian ones, “dispatched” Russian Black sea fleet warships Caesar Kunikov and Nikolai Filchenkov to Syria, even though what indeed took place next to the two ships’ base in Sebastopol was just a routine exercise, after which both vessels returned to their base the same day. The strange story with British media suddenly becoming 100 percent sure that a Russian-owned vessel, MV Alaed, was carrying attack helicopters and coastal anti-ship missiles “somewhere off the coast of Scotland” also lacks clarifications. But the British foreign secretary William Hague made a special statement about it in the House of Commons. Obviously, in modern politics, politicians do not shy away from participating in media games.

“What is important is that the Western audience had these words crammed in its head: Russia – ships – troops – arms – Syria. How much truth is behind these words, will the suspicions be proved in 2-3 weeks or even 2-3 days is indeed not so important,” said Konstantin Bogdanov, an analyst on the military matters at the Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

What is important for Russia and for the majority of other countries of the world is the question: are Western leaders going to compromise on any of their “revolutionary” plans for the Middle East? For the moment, signs are not very reassuring. The next talks of the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany (5+1) with Iran on Tehran’s nuclear program are scheduled to start on July 1 in Istanbul. So, there is still some room for compromise.

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5.

U.S. Remains In Gulf With Tens Of Thousands Of Troops

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com   rwrozoff

Wed Jun 20, 2012 7:56 pm (PDT)



http://www.rt.com/news/persian-gulf-american-military-291/

RT
June 20, 2012

US clings onto Gulf with tens of thousands of troops in region

====

The build-up of the American contingent in the region is a direct result of Washington withdrawing troops from Iraq in December 2011. The troops and military vehicles did not actually go far: many simply crossed the border with Kuwait and added to the population of the three US bases that serve as logistical hubs, training ranges, and which provide support for regional operations. Besides, the territory of Kuwait is securely covered by Patriot missile batteries stationed there, a vital element of missile defense to be developed in the region, as promised by the US to its allies.

====

The latest US Senate Foreign Relations Committee report suggests the US will seek to maintain its position as the only superior military power in the Arabian Peninsula and Persian Gulf region for the time being.

Despite the troop withdrawal from Iraq, the American military presence in the area is set to expand.

The seven-point report suggests that working in close cooperation with GCC (Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf) states, the US intends to maintain military bases or presence in practically all of those countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

Americans call this strategy a “lily pad” model. The US military bases scattered here and there enable the US military command to hold the territory under full control, allowing it to increase military presence in chosen locations at any given time.

In Kuwait alone, where the US has three bases, there are 15,000 troops stationed, including a couple of brigade combat teams and a combat aviation brigade.

Overall in the region there are reportedly 40,000 American servicemen ready for action.

The build-up of the American contingent in the region is a direct result of Washington withdrawing troops from Iraq in December 2011. The troops and military vehicles did not actually go far: many simply crossed the border with Kuwait and added to the population of the three US bases that serve as logistical hubs, training ranges, and which provide support for regional operations. Besides, the territory of Kuwait is securely covered by Patriot missile batteries stationed there, a vital element of missile defense to be developed in the region, as promised by the US to its allies.

If one divides the Persian Gulf lengthwise, it becomes clear that one shore is under tight Washington control, with troops stationed in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Despite the fact that the United States withdrew most troops from Saudi Arabia in 2003, the country remains the biggest American arms buyer. Some 3,000 servicemen of the 64th Air Expeditionary Group are still stationed about 20 km southeast of the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh.

====

Seven principles of US military policy in the Persian Gulf:

1. The US ensures a “security umbrella” to its Arab allies.
2. The US remains a central part of the Gulf security framework.
3. The US increases trade relations with GCC states to promote economic reform and diversification.
4. The US preserves the “lily pad” model of military bases throughout the Gulf region, which permits the rapid escalation of military force in case of emergency.
5. The US uses the GCC partners’ capabilities in select defensive missions, though keeping its role as a security guarantor.
6. The US provides the Gulf partners with security assistance, supports a comprehensive strategy for regional arms sales and ensures a stable security architecture.
7. The US should promote the gradual political reintegration of Iraq into the Arab fold.

====

The other side of the Gulf belongs to a nation that actually gave its ancient name to it – Iran. Since Iran and its nuclear program remain a major stumbling block in international politics, the correct answer to the question “why does Washington need so many combat-ready troops in the Persian Gulf” is Iran. There is simply no other nation in the region that might pose a threat to Washington’s interests in the Middle East.

The Gulf Security Architecture: Partnership with the Gulf Cooperation Council report prepared by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee again stresses the political and economic importance of the region for the US and outlines seven principles for the US military to provide security in the Persian Gulf region.

The US continues to expand its combat-capable presence in the unstable region of the Middle East despite a declared shift of interests to the Asia-Pacific region. Heavy financing of the American contingent in the Gulf region is called to stress that America has not forgotten its Arab allies and that Washington intends to play a military superpower role in the foreseeable future.
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6.

No Replay: Russia Says NATO, Not Libyan People, Decided Gaddafi's Fa

Posted by: "Rick Rozoff" rwrozoff@yahoo.com   rwrozoff

Thu Jun 21, 2012 9:05 am (PDT)



http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c32/453468.html

Itar-Tass
June 21, 2012

Lavrov says Russia will not admit replay of Libyan scenario for Syria  

MOSCOW: Russia will not admit a replay of the Libyan scenario in Syria, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with the Echo of Moscow liberal radio.

“It wasn’t the Libyan people who decided Gaddafi’s fate, it was NATO,” he said. “Nothing would have happened there without NATO’s bombings. Or, to be more precise, a reciprocal self-annihilation of the people would have continued, but NATO wouldn’t have gotten a mandate to take part in that war as one of the warring sides anyway.”

“That’s why Gaddafi’s plight is a somewhat different story but a replication of the Libyan scenario in Syria won’t be admitted, and we can guarantee this,” Lavrov said. “That’s why the parties to the Syrian conflict should take seats at the conference table and negotiate peace.”

----------------------------------------------------------

http://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?pg=3&id=341628

Interfax
June 21, 2012

Syrian govt, opposition should pull out troops from cities simultaneously - Lavrov

MOSCOW/ST. PETERSBURG: The Syrian government and the opposition should withdraw their troops from cities and other communities simultaneously under the UN observers' control, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

Speaking to Echo Moskvy radio station on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum on Thursday, Lavrov said Russia could give its consent to increasing the number of UN military monitors in Syria.

"We deem it very important at this stage to make all the conflicting parties withdraw their armed units and military hardware from cities and other communities, but this must be done simultaneously," Lavrov said.

"It happened earlier that the Syrian government, complying with an Arab League plan, left some cities last fall, and monitors reported that this happened, and then the government entered these cities again because opposition units had occupied them in the absence of government forces," he said.

"There is a need for a plan of simultaneous withdrawal on both sides for each populated area under control of UN international monitors, the number of which we are prepared to increase," he said.

----------------------------------------------------------

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_06_21/78867287/

Interfax
June 21, 2012

Lavrov warns against Assad’s resignation


In an interview with Radio Ekho Moskvy on Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described as ‘unrealistic’ Western leaders’ demands for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s free-will resignation.

Lavrov slammed the West’s scheme which cites Assad’s resignation as the only way to halt the violence in Greece. He recalled that at least 50 percent of Syrians supported Assad’s party during the elections.

Separately, Lavrov commented on a statement by French President Francois Hollande who said that Assad’s stepping down should become a precondition for the resolution of the Syrian crisis.

The top Russian diplomat said that the West’s Syria policy may lead to radicals’ coming to power there, something that will, in turn, damage security interests of moderate Muslims and Christians.

Lavrov was speaking on the sidelines of the 2012 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

----------------------------------------------------------

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_06_21/78856260/

Voice of Russia
June 21, 2012

Russia continues consultations on Syria conference


Russia continues consultations to pave the way for the holding of an international conference on Syria which was earlier initiated by Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told reporters on Thursday.

He declined to elaborate.

Earlier this month, presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said that the conference could be held in Moscow or Geneva, and that the exact date was yet to be defined.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, for his part, voiced hope that the gathering will be attended by all permanent UN Security Council members and Syria’s immediate neighbors, as well as a host of key regional players and major international organizations.

Syria’s immediate neighbors include Iraq, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, while among key regional players are Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iran. 
Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 05:28