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Russia stands firm on Syria

Vows to keep up arms supply; Annan to brief UN

AFP, Damascus
Syria's opposition yesterday failed to persuade Russia to drop ally President Bashar al-Assad and warned that this will only prolong the violence, as peace envoy Kofi Annan prepared to brief the UN Security Council.
As fresh clashes across the country challenged Assad's beleaguered regime, Russia refused to shift its stand on the conflict, the Syrian National Council (SNC) said after talks in Moscow with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Abdel Basset Sayda, head of the exiled SNC, reacted angrily to the failure.
"We reject the Russian policy — however it is presented — as this policy of supporting the regime is allowing the violence to continue," he told reporters after the talks.
"The Syrian people continue to suffer because of the position of Russia at the UN Security Council where Russia has used its veto" to block two resolutions against Assad's regime, he
said.
Underlining the gulf between the SNC and Moscow, Lavrov said Russia wanted to understand in the talks if there were "prospects" of the opposition groups uniting and joining a platform for dialogue with the Syrian government.
Meanwhile, Russia yesterday vowed not to follow aWestern arms embargo on Syria and promised new air defence systems and other military components to President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
Earlier, a top Russian arms export official had raised eyebrows in Western capitals earlier in the week by saying that Russia would no longer provide new weapons for Syria.
That same official yesterday told reporters that his comments covered only a tiny range of new types of weapons and in no way concerned the military trade that exists between the two allies today.
Russia is Assad's main ally apart from Iran and has fiercely resisted international action against the
Damascus government as proposed by Washington and European powers.
On Tuesday, Moscow proposed a Security Council resolution on Syria that would extend the UN observer mission in the country without any threat of sanctions, diplomats in New York said.
The resolution was sent to the council's other 14 members ahead of a briefing on yesterday by UN-Arab League envoy Annan on efforts to revive his peace plan, Russia's deputy UN envoy Igor Pankin told reporters.
On the ground, in the commercial hub of Aleppo, at least two soldiers were killed as rebels attacked a checkpoint overnight, the Britain-based watchdog said.
The Observatory also reported an attack in the northwestern province of Idlib on a bus transporting soldiers, killing as many as 11 troops although the exact number was impossible to verify.
It added that 82 people were killed in violence across Syria on Tuesday.