Paris: Russian President Vladimir Putin warned today of an “extremely dangerous” situation in Syria and emerging signs of a civil war but rejected a military intervention as he met with European leaders.
Amid mounting pressure for Moscow to drop its resistance to tougher UN action on Syria, Putin met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and had arrived in Paris for talks with newly elected French President Francois Hollande.
In Moscow the foreign ministry blamed the Houla massacre on foreign assistance to Syrian rebels, including arms deliveries and mercenary training.
“The tragedy in Houla showed what can be the outcome of financial aid and smuggling of modern weapons to rebels, recruitment of foreign mercenaries and flirting with various sorts of extremists,” the ministry said in a statement.
In Berlin, Putin appeared to strike a more conciliatory tone, warning of the escalating danger from the Syrian conflict and refraining from openly backing President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. “Today we are seeing emerging elements of civil war,” Putin said after arriving in Berlin from Belarus.
“It is extremely dangerous.” But he also continued to defy calls for tougher UN action to stop the violence, warning at a joint press conference with Merkel: “You cannot do anything by force and expect an immediate effect.” And he hit back at suggestions Moscow was supplying weapons for use in the internal conflict, after the United States condemned Russian arms deliveries to Syria as “reprehensible”.
“As far as arms supplies are concerned, Russia does not supply the weapons that could be used in a civil conflict,” Putin told reporters, as he continued his first foreign tour since returning to the Kremlin.
Putin’s brief trips to Berlin and Paris came amid mounting outrage in the West against Assad’s regime after a massacre of 108 people, including women and children, in the town of Houla last week. UN rights chief Navi Pillay said the massacre could be a crime against humanity.
Putin said Russia, Germany and their partners would do their utmost to stop the violence from escalating and help UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, who has brokered a peace plan for Syria, achieve “positive results”.
“We both made clear that we are pushing for a political solution, that the Annan plan can be a starting point but that everything must be done in the United Nations Security Council to implement this plan,” Merkel said. (AFP)
