Russia on Tuesday warned a military intervention in Syria could have "catastrophic consequences" for the region and called on the international community to show "prudence" over the crisis.
"Attempts to bypass the Security
Council, once again to create artificial groundless excuses for a
military intervention in the region are fraught with new suffering in
Syria and catastrophic consequences for other countries of the Middle
East and North Africa," a foreign ministry spokesman said.
"We are calling on our American
partners and all members of the world community to demonstrate prudence
(and) strict observance of international law, especially the fundamental
principles of the UN Charter," ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin,
who is known for his sharp tongue, said on Twitter that "the West
behaves towards the Islamic world like a monkey with a grenade."
Earlier Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov
said that Moscow regretted Monday's decision by the US to postpone a
meeting on the Syria crisis, as Western powers mulled military action
over last week's chemical attack in Syria.
The scrapping of the meeting,
which was due to take place at The Hague later in the week, is the
latest sign of a new peak in tensions between Moscow and the West over
the possibility of military strikes against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
"It arouses regret that our partners decided to cancel the bilateral meeting," Gatilov said on Twitter."Working out the parameters of a political solution in Syria would have been especially helpful right now, when military action is hanging over this country," Gatilov said.
In such a climate, it was especially important to work in concert to try to organise the repeatedly postponed peace conference bringing together the Damascus regime and the rebels, Lukashevich said.
"However, the United States' decision to postpone the meeting in The Hague is sending precisely the opposite signal to the opposition, encouraging their intransigence as they await outside intervention," he said.
Western countries including the United States are considering their response to an alleged chemical weapons attack by Assad's regime on August 21.
Russia has said it believes
rebels were behind the incident and has warned any military action
without UN approval would violate international law.
On Monday Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov condemned the
"hysteria" over the claimed chemical attack and said the West had yet to
come up with proof that Assad's regime was behind it.He also said Russia would not get involved in a military conflict in Syria.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told British Prime Minister David Cameron
in a telephone call on Monday there was no evidence yet that the Syrian
regime had used chemical weapons against rebels, Cameron's office said.
Pro-Kremlin Russian newspaper Izvestia on Monday published an
interview with Assad who ridiculed as "nonsense" the idea his regime
used chemical weapons and warned the United States of failure if it
attacked Syria.Russian officials are now comparing the possible use of force against Syria to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, which was vehemently opposed by Moscow as based on flawed intelligence that Saddam Hussein's regime possessed weapons of mass destruction.
"Deja-vu," Alexei Pushkov, the head of the Russian parliament's foreign affairs committee wrote on Twitter.
"It feels like in the White House
it's still (George W.) Bush, (Dick) Cheney and (Donald) Rumsfeld and in
Downing Street Tony Blair," he said, referring to the former US
president, vice president, defence secretary and British premier during
the Iraq war.
The Interfax news agency quoted a diplomatic source who derided US
Secretary of State John Kerry's most recent statement on Syria as full
of "pomp."Kerry called the use of chemical weapons "a moral obscenity."
A military-diplomatic source told
the news agency the possible use of force would not lead to an "easy
victory" because Syria had enough air defence systems to rebuff attacks. LINK
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