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Russia halts new weapons' sales to Syria

Dunya News

Russia Monday signaled that it would not sell new weapons to Syria until the situation calms down.

The country will continue with previously agreed exports, but will not be selling new arms to Syria, Vyacheslav Dzirkaln, deputy chief of the Russian military and technical cooperation agency, told Russian news agencies on the sidelines of the Farnborough air show southwest off London.Putting it in conflict with the West, the Russians have blocked the U.N.s Security Council from taking strong, punitive action against the Assad regime and are seen as the countrys key arms supplier. Syrian activists say that about 14,000 people have been killed in an uprising in the country since March 2011.Russia has been providing Syrias army with spare parts and assistance in repairs of the weapons supplied earlier, Dzirkaln said. He insisted that Russia does not sell helicopters or fighter planes to Syria.U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton last month issued a harsh reprimand to Russia, saying that Moscow dramatically escalated the crisis in Syria by sending attack helicopters there. The State Department acknowledged later that the helicopters were actually refurbished ones already owned by the Syrian regime.Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier on Monday said that Russia is still committed to a peace plan by U.N. envoy Kofi Annan, saying that the Syrian government and opposition groups should be forced to start a dialogue.Annans six-point peace plan was to begin with a cease-fire in mid-April between government forces and rebels seeking to topple Assad, to be followed by political dialogue.But the truce never took hold, and almost 300 U.N. observers sent to monitor the cease-fire are now confined to their hotels because of the escalating violence.British Foreign Secretary William Hague on Monday called on Russia to show a strong commitment to secure the implementation and mandate the implementation of what Kofi Annan has put forward.