Putin Backs Curbing Syria Use of Force After Russian UN Veto
February 08, 2012, 11:24 AM ESTBy Ilya Arkhipov
(Updates with Putin’s comment from second paragraph.)
Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Vladimir Putin backed limiting the use of force in Syria without allowing outside interference in the conflict days after Russia and China vetoed a United Nations resolution to end the bloodshed in the country.
“Help them, limit them, for instance, in the ability of the two sides to use weapons, but don’t interfere under any circumstances,” Putin said at a meeting with religious leaders today in Moscow. “We condemn all violence but one can’t behave like a bull in a china shop.”
After abstaining in last March’s vote that authorized military action in Libya led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Russia last week joined China in vetoing a UN Security Council resolution drafted by western and Arab countries to facilitate a handover of power in Syria. Russia supplies arms to Syria, where it has its only military base outside the former Soviet Union.
Putin, who has previously accused western allies of waging a “crusade” in Libya, said the campaign there has provoked “frightening crimes” in Sirte, the hometown of late leader Muammar Qaddafi.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad pledged a new constitution and asked Russia to broker talks with the opposition after talks yesterday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
“We undoubtedly have to give the peoples of these countries a possibility of independently determining their destiny,” Putin said. “Our task is to help them accomplish that without any outside interference.”
--Editors: Paul Abelsky, Andrew Langley
To contact the reporter on this story: Ilya Arkhipov in Moscow at iarkhipov@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net
