Syria

Russia will not change stance on Syria: Putin aide


The spokesman of Russian President Vladimir Putin says Moscow will not change its stance toward Syria under “someone’s pressure.”

Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that Russia’s position regarding the Syrian issue is “well-known… balanced and consistent and completely logical,” according to the Russian Interfax news agency.

“So it is hardly appropriate to talk about this position changing under someone’s pressure.”

Peskov made the remarks two days after a number of Western countries announced on May 29 that they were expelling senior Syrian diplomats in an apparently coordinated move to protest the May 25 violence in the western Syrian town of Houla.

However, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that the move was “counter-productive.”

Head of the UN observer mission in Syria Major General Robert Mood said in a briefing via videoconference from Damascus to an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on May 27 that the UN observers in Houla estimated 108 people were killed, including 49 children and 34 women.

Peskov also stated that Moscow’s refusal to support measures against the Syrian government following the Houla massacre and other attacks on civilians was based on an approach “completely free of emotions, which are hardly appropriate here.”

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