Israeli protests fail to block Russian arms sales to Syria
The Independent UK
Date: 04-28-05
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, has made clear his determination to sell anti-aircraft missiles to Syria, despite pressure from Israeli leaders to revoke the deal.
Neither Russia nor Israel made any effort to disguise the open disagreement on this and other issues in talks which both Mr Putin and the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon nevertheless went out of their way to depict as cementing improved relations between the two countries.
Mr Sharon, whose parents were born in Russia, greeted Mr Putin in Russian and told him "he should feel among brothers" on his visit to Israel. Mr Putin, reflecting that he was glad to be visiting at the time of the Passover and the Orthodox Christian Easter, declared: "I would like to wish the Jewish people well with all my heart; I wish joy for the entire Jewish family."
But on arms for Syria; on the best way of securing Middle East peace; and on Russia's help for Iran's nuclear programme - which Mr Putin insisted would be confined to peaceful uses - the talks did little to remove the important differences which remain between the two governments.
Mr Putin strongly defended his decision to sell SA-18 missiles to Syria. He disclosed in talks with Moshe Katsav, the Israeli President, that he had vetoed a contract also to sell Iskander missiles, which have a longer range, to Damascus on the grounds that Israel would not be able to intercept them.
By contrast, the SA-18s "cannot reach Israeli territory" Mr Putin said, adding: "To come within their range, you have to attack Syria. Do you want to do that?"
Responding to Israeli fears that the weapons could fall into the hands of Hizbollah, Mr Putin said that the missiles could not be shoulder-fired and would not work if uncoupled from the vehicles on which they were mounted.
Mr Putin did not mention yesterday that Israeli warplanes had indeed bombed alleged militant training bases outside Damascus on 5 October 2003 and had since "buzzed" one of the Syrian President Bashar Assad's palaces.
Instead, he pointed out that Russia's sales of weapons to the Middle East totalled $500m (£252m) compared with what he said was a total of $6.8bn in US arms sales to the region.
At his news conference yesterday Mr Putin did not publicly repeat his call - made the previous day in Cairo - for a Middle East summit in Moscow. The idea has received short shrift from Israel and the US, along with a distinctly tepid response from Javier Solano, the European foreign affairs commissioner. Israel has also made clear its opposition to Russian proposals to provide armoured personnel carriers and other equipment to Palestinian security forces.
But Mr Putin, who will hold talks today with the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, warned both sides not to take actions which would prejudice final status talks. This appeared to be a way of emphasising what is also the US official position - that Israel should not be pre-empting a final peace deal by settlement expansion, including steps that could prejudice the chances of east Jerusalem being a future Palestinian capital.
On Iran, Mr Putin was somewhat more emollient in his language, saying he accepted that existing steps to prevent Iran developing a nuclear weapons programme were "not enough" and that Iran had to be persuaded to accept nuclear weapons inspections.
But Ehud Olmert, Israel's Deputy Prime Minister, insisted yesterday that Russia was selling Iran components that could be used for non-conventional weapons.
Although Mr Sharon has said that Israel does not intend to attack Iran, the US Defence Security Co-operation Agency notified Congress this week that it wanted to authorise the sale of up to 100 large bunker-buster bombs to Israel, a move widely seen as a warning to Iran about its nuclear ambitions.
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