Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Biodun Iginla, BBC News
Showing posts with label Sergei Lavrov. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sergei Lavrov. Show all posts

Monday, July 30, 2018

We can't force Iran out of Syria, Russia tells Israelis

July 30, 2018  22H:32  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME
JERUSALEM - Russia cannot compel Iranian forces to quit Syria, Moscow’s ambassador to Tel Aviv said on Monday, rebuffing Israel’s long-standing demand that it should work to ensure their total withdrawal from the country.
Ambassador Anatoly Viktorov said Moscow could equally do nothing to prevent Israeli military strikes against Iranian forces in Syria, which along with Russia and Tehran-backed Lebanese militias are supporting President Bashar al-Assad in combating rebel fighters.
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With Assad now in almost complete control of southwestern areas abutting the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan Heights, Viktorov told Israel’s Channel 10 television in an interview that only Syrian army troops should be deployed there.
Last week an Israeli official said Russia had offered to keep Iranian forces at least 100 km (60 miles) from the Golan Heights ceasefire line. The offer came up during a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, but Israel rejected it as insufficient, the official said.
Viktorov defended the Iranians’ presence in Syria.
“They are playing a very, very important role in our common and joint effort to eliminate terrorists in Syria. That is why, for this period of time, we see as non-realistic any demands to expel any foreign troops from the entirety of the Syrian Arab Republic,” he said.
“We can talk with our Iranian partners very frankly and openly, trying to persuade them to do or not to do something,” he said. But asked whether Russia can force Iran out, he answered: “We cannot.”
While formally neutral in the seven-year-old civil war next door, Israel has carried out scores of air strikes against suspected emplacements or arms transfers by Iranian or Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas in Syria, apparently unimpeded by the Russian defense systems deployed there.
A military hotline Israel and Russia set up in 2015 has also helped to the countries avoid inadvertently clashing over Syria.
Viktorov expressed disapproval of the attacks on Syria, but added: “We cannot dictate to Israel how to proceed ... It is not up to Russia to give Israel freedom to do anything, or to prohibit Israel to do anything.”
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Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Russia accuses U.S. of training former Islamic State fighters in Syria

DECEMBER 28, 2017  00H:25  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME
MOSCOW - The chief of the Russian General Staff has accused the United States of training former Islamic State fighters in Syria to try to destabilize the country.
FILE PHOTO: Chief of the General Staff of Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov arrives for the opening ceremony of the International Army Games 2017 in Alabino, outside Moscow, Russia, July 29, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
General Valery Gerasimov’s allegations, made in a newspaper interview, center on a U.S. military base at Tanf, a strategic Syrian highway border crossing with Iraq in the south of the country.
Russia says the U.S. base is illegal and that it and the area around it have become “a black hole” where militants operate unhindered.
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Islamic State has this year lost almost all the territory it held in Syria and Iraq. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday the main part of the battle with Islamic State in Syria was over, according to the state-run RIA news agency.
The United States says the Tanf facility is a temporary base used to train partner forces to fight Islamic State. It has rejected similar Russian allegations in the past, saying Washington remains committed to killing off Islamic State and denying it safe havens.
But Gerasimov told the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper on Wednesday that the United States was training up fighters who were former Islamic State militants but who now call themselves the New Syrian Army or use other names.
He said Russia satellites and drones had spotted militant brigades at the U.S. base.
“They are in reality being trained there,” Gerasimov said, saying there were also a large number of militants and former Islamic State fighters at Shadadi, where he said there was also a U.S. base.

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“They are practically Islamic State,” he said. “But after they are worked with, they change their spots and take on another name. Their task is to destabilize the situation.”
Russia has partially withdrawn from Syria, but Gerasimov said the fact that Moscow was keeping an air base and naval facility there meant it was well placed to deal with pockets of instability if and when they arose.
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Friday, August 11, 2017

Russia: US bellicose rhetoric on North Korea is 'over the top'

AUGUST 12, 2017 /  05H:30 GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME
MOSCOW - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday the risks of a military conflict over North Korea's nuclear program are very high, and Moscow is deeply worried by the mutual threats being traded by Washington and Pyongyang.
"Unfortunately, the rhetoric in Washington and Pyongyang is now starting to go over the top," Lavrov said. "We still hope and believe that common sense will prevail."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov gestures during press briefing as his counterpart Retno Marsudi talks to media at Indonesia Foreign Ministry office in Jakarta, August 9, 2017.Beawiharta
Asked at a forum for Russian students about the risks of the stand-off escalating into armed conflict, he said: "The risks are very high, especially taking into account the rhetoric."
"Direct threats of using force are heard... The talk (in Washington) is that there must be a preventive strike made on North Korea, while Pyongyang is threatening to carry out a missile strike on the U.S. base in Guam. These (threats) continue non-stop, and they worry us a lot."
"I won't get into guessing what happens 'if'. We will do whatever we can to prevent this 'if'."
"My personal opinion is that when you get close to the point of a fight breaking out, the side that is stronger and cleverer should take the first step away from the threshold of danger," said Lavrov, in remarks broadcast on state television.
He encouraged Pyongyang and Washington to sign up to a joint Russian-Chinese plan, under which North Korea would freeze its missile tests and the United States and South Korea would impose a moratorium on large-scale military exercises.
"If this double freezing finally takes place, then we can sit down and start from the very beginning - to sign a paper which will stress respect for the sovereignty of all those parties involved, including North Korea," Lavrov said.
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Monday, May 15, 2017

BREAKING: Trump 'shared classified information with Russia'


  • May 16, 2017  00H49  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME
    •  
  • From the sectionUS & Canada
Trump jokes with Lavrov and ambassador Sergei KislyakImage copyrightAFP
Image captionMr Trump (centre) jokes with Mr Lavrov (left) and Ambassador Sergei Kislyak
by Rachel Rubin and Biodun Iginla, BBC News, New York
President Donald Trump revealed highly classified information about so-called Islamic State to the Russian foreign minister, officials have told US media.
The information came from a partner of the US which had not given the US permission to share it with Russia, says the Washington Post.
It happened when Mr Trump met Sergei Lavrov in the Oval Office last week, says the paper.
But a senior security official has said the report is not true.
"This story is false," said Dina Powell, deputy national security adviser for strategy, who was in the meeting. "The president only discussed the common threats that both countries faced."
The Trump campaign's alleged links to Moscow have dogged his presidency, and are part of several investigations.
But the president has dismissed it as "fake news".
During the election campaign, Mr Trump repeatedly criticised his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, for how she handled classified material.

A knife in the back? Analysis by Anthony Zurcher, BBC News, Washington

The fallout from this story could be enormous and not just because there is a boundless trove of Republican quotes over the past year - directed at Mrs Clinton - about the utmost importance of protecting top-secret information.
There is the Russian connection, of course.
The FBI is currently investigating the Trump campaign for possible ties to Russian interests. Meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak featured prominently in the firing of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and Attorney General Jeff Sessions' recusal on Russian investigation matters.
Then there is the question of whether US allies will be more reluctant to share sensitive intelligence information with the US, lest the president put sources at risk.
This will only stoke accusations by Trump critics that the president is undisciplined and inexperienced in the delicacies of foreign policy, where his shoot-from-the hip style presents an ongoing danger.
Finally, it is worth remembering the simmering feud Mr Trump has had with the US intelligence community. It took less than a week for this highly embarrassing story to leak. If the revelation was a knife twisted in the president's back, it is not hard to suspect where it came from.

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