Russian President Vladimir Putin warned yesterday 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, Mr Putin met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and later arrived in Paris for talks with newly elected French President Francois Hollande.
In Berlin, Mr 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. But he also continued to defy calls for tougher UN action to stop the violence. He also hit back at suggestions Moscow was supplying weapons for use in the internal conflict, after the US 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.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday warned that Russia’s policy of propping up the Assad regime could contribute to a civil war and even lead to a wider proxy war because of Iran’s support for Damascus. And she claimed yesterday that Russia had continued to supply arms to the Assad regime, raising “serious concerns” in the US.
“We know there has been a very consistent arms trade, even during the past year, coming from Russia to Syria. We also believe the continuous supply of arms from Russia has strengthened the Assad regime,” Mrs Clinton told a news conference in Oslo.
Meanwhile, in a graphic video posted to Youtube yesterday by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Syrian tank is seen running over the body of a dissident fighter.
A group of four tanks and an open truck carrying soldiers are seen parked on a dirt road while others in uniform and one man in plain clothes casually mill around the area. A soldier on one of the tanks films as his vehicle begins to move, panning down to the dead body of a dissident on the road between the tanks, his body completely disfigured and bloody, and his head already split open.
The tank proceeds to run over the body as the soldiers in the truck observe the scene.
A soldier, who appears to be the one filming the scene, then faces the camera, his face stern, saying nothing. Observatory head Rami Abdel-Rahman said by phone that the man shown on the ground was confirmed to be a dissident.