Russia resists efforts in EU to lift ban on weapons sales to Syrian rebels

Russia has continually been using soft, diplomatic power to shield Syria from the invasion, allying itself with China to resist the authorization of a security council response. Minister Lavrov has stayed steadfast against the imperialists as far as open war is concerned, but now the conspirators are openly discussing weapons sales. There have been previous reports that Lebanon is selling weapons to the Syrian rebels (which will be re-blogged in a future post), but the U.S. and its allies want a full push as the conflict is past the two-year mark. #SyriaWatch will continue to monitor the Russian response to see if Moscow falters in defending its ally.

 

Russia warns EU not to lift Syria arms ban as UK keeps pushingnSh

 

 

By Alexei Anishchuk

MOSCOW | Mon Apr 22, 2013 7:01am EDT
 

(Reuters) - Russia warned the European Union on Monday not to lift an arms embargo that has prevented weapons supplies to Syrian rebels, despite British and French lobbying.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Sunday that EU foreign ministers, who last month rejected a Franco-British proposal to ease the ban, would in coming weeks discuss the question again.

Russia, which says it is continuing to implement weapons contracts with Syria but is no longer delivering arms that could be used in the civil conflict, has vehemently opposed any supplies of weapons to President Bashar al-Assad's opponents.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said an embargo was unnecessary in the first place because such supplies were prohibited by international law.

If the embargo is removed, "the international obligations of the EU countries, which prohibit supplies of arms and ammunition to non-government actors, are not going anywhere", he said at a news briefing after talks with his Guinean counterpart.

Russia has used its U.N. Security Council veto power to shield Assad from Western efforts to push him from power or increase pressure upon him to end violence in a conflict that has killed more than 70,000 people since March 2011.

Moscow has for months been calling for implementation of an declaration agreed by world powers including Russia and the United States in Geneva last June that called for a transitional government. However, Washington disagrees with Moscow's assertion that the agreement requires Assad to step down.

Lavrov said he and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry would discuss ways to promote a peace process in Syria at talks on the sidelines of a NATO gathering and a Russia-NATO foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.

"We will discuss what we, Russia and the United States, can do to convince those who ... are resisting the peace process to step onto the path of implementing the Geneva agreements," Lavrov said.

Russian and U.S. diplomats have held several meetings for that purpose since late last year, to little effect.

Lavrov said that in a telephone conversation with Kerry on Saturday, "I sensed confirmation of the intention ... to seek as swift as possible a political solution".

But he said the West had not done enough to encourage all Assad's foes to show readiness for dialogue with the government: "So far there is clearly not enough movement on this."
(Writing by Steve Gutterman; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

About Me

I am unaffiliated person in this conflict. I am not a Syrian nor have any relatives or friends in the region. I'm simply a concerned American citizen who would not want to see any further war in the Middle East.

I started becoming politically sensitive, like most, during the (Second) Iraq War. For most Americans, it was clearly an unnecessary conflict meant to bully a vulnerable, non-nuclear nation towards American interests. As stated before, it wasn't out of any good feeling toward Saddam Hussein that I was against the Iraq invasion, but simply as a peace-loving person, it was unacceptable to see my leaders lie, invade, and massacre a million+ people.

(And now the same situation is happening in Syria. The same thugs that were sent to destroy the Libyan nation are now re-hired to go north and kill Assad, sell off infrastructure, and reap profits from oil sales to continue their jihad.)

I took my political interests with me to university, and after some searching, soon got involved in the left groups there. It was then that I found a small group of people who were well-researched and very much interested in seeing some justice done in the world, after all the crimes of the Bush administration.

I left those political groups after university, but never lost interest in world events, and still consider myself highly politicized. This blog will be my outlet for events in Syria, as now is a desperate time, since the sale of weapons are being openly discussed by the Friends of Syria in the palatial settings of Turkey.

About This Blog

The Western capitalists and their Sunni Islamic partners in the Persian Gulf region are desperately seeking regime change in Syria. The conflict has been going on for 2 years now, with Islamic extremists from all over the Middle East being sent in to destabilize the country. Most of these fighters were trained in Turkey, and now the international "Friends of Syria" coalition is attempting to openly sell weapons to them, with the United States leading the pack in terms of funding.

This blog is meant to counter the pro-regime change propaganda in the Western media (and Al Jazeera) to show that this war is nothing but a battle of hegemony for the capitalist superstructure to survive in the 21st century. It is not pro-Assad, but anti-imperialist, specifically. And this is certainly an imperialist proxy war, which will have devastating implications to Iran, Russia, and China if the aggressors are successful.