Russia warns US against Syria action

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the US and the West against one-sided action in Syria. Putin re-iterated Russia’s stand on Syria. He said that Russia may support a U.N. backed resolution on military action against Syria if it is proved that Syrian government used chemical weapons or poisonous gas on its people.

In an interview with The Associated Press and Russia’s state Channel 1 television, Mr. Putin admitted that Moscow has provided some components of air defence missile system to Syria but now stopped further business. He said that Russia will go ahead selling its powerful missile systems to other counties if Western nations (US mainly) attack Syria without U.N. Security Council backing.

“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 realising quite well that it could serve as a pretext for applying sanctions against them, including the use of force,” President Putin said.

 “If there are data that the chemical weapons have been used, and used specifically by the regular army, this evidence should be submitted to the U.N. Security Council,” added Mr. Putin, a former officer in the Soviet KGB. “And it ought to be convincing. It shouldn’t be based on some rumours and information obtained by special services through some kind of eavesdropping, some conversations and things like that,” he added.

“All these arguments turned out to be untenable, but they were used to launch a military action, which many in the U.S. called a mistake. Did we forget about that?” Mr. Putin asked.

Mr. Putin said President Barack Obama’s decision of cancelling a one-on-one meeting with is unfortunate.

“President Obama hasn’t been elected by the American people in order to be pleasant to Russia. And your humble servant hasn’t been elected by the people of Russia to be pleasant to someone either,” he said.

“We work, we argue about some issues. We are human. Sometimes one of us gets vexed. But I would like to repeat once again that global mutual interests form a good basis for finding a joint solution to our problems,” Mr. Putin said.

When asked what Russia will do if U.S. attacked Syria, Mr. Putin said, “We have our ideas about what we will do and how we will do it in case the situation develops toward the use of force or otherwise. We have our plans.”

“But if we see that steps are taken that violate the existing international norms, we shall think how we should act in the future, in particular regarding supplies of such sensitive weapons to certain regions of the world,” he added.

Putin’s announcement comes ahead of crucial G20 summit in St. Petersburg which is expected to focus on the global economic crisis and Syria conflict.

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