Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned the US not to take “hasty and reckless steps” in response to the crisis in Ukraine’s Crimea region.
According to BBC, in a phone call with his US counterpart John Kerry, Mr Lavrov said imposing sanctions on Moscow would harm the US.
Pro-Russian troops have been in control of Crimea for the last week.
Earlier, a stand-off involving pro-Russian soldiers at a Ukrainian military base outside Sevastopol reportedly ended without incident.
Crimea’s parliament announced on Thursday it would hold a referendum on 16 March on whether to join Russia or remain part of Ukraine.
Russia’s parliament has promised to support Crimea if it chooses to become part of Russia.
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Crimea
Autonomous republic within Ukraine
Transferred from Russia in 1954
Ethnic Russians – 58.5%*
Ethnic Ukrainians – 24.4%*
Crimean Tatars – 12.1%*
Source: Ukraine census 2001
Why Crimea is so dangerous
Crimean vote tests Western nerves
The vote has been denounced as “illegitimate” by the interim government in Kiev, which took power after President Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia last month in the wake of mass protests against his government and deadly clashes with security forces.
In their telephone conversation on Friday, Mr Lavrov warned Mr Kerry against taking “hasty and unthought-through steps capable of causing harm to Russian-US relations”, Russia’s foreign ministry reports.
Mr Lavrov said imposing sanctions on Russia in response to its involvement in Ukraine “will inevitably have a boomerang effect against the US itself”.
The US State Department said Mr Kerry had “underscored the importance of finding a constructive way to resolve the situation diplomatically, which would address the interests of the people of Ukraine, Russia and the international community”.
“Secretary Kerry and Foreign Minister Lavrov agreed to continue to consult in the days ahead on the way forward,” said the US statement.
Journalists beaten
Pro-Russian troops have been blockading key installations in Crimea for a number of days
The majority Russian-speaking Crimea region is of political and strategic significance to both Russia and Ukraine
On Friday evening, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency cited Ukraine’s defence ministry as saying a lorry had rammed open the gates of the missile defence base A2355 outside the Crimean city of Sevastopol and that about 20 “attackers” had entered, throwing stun grenades.
The Ukrainian troops barricaded themselves inside a building and their commander began negotiations before any shots were fired, it added.
The BBC’s Christian Fraser, who visited the scene, said the gates did not appear to have been driven through, and there was no sign that the base had been seized.
There were two military lorries with Russian number plates outside the gates, surrounded by irregular soldiers and a very hostile crowd of pro-Russian demonstrators, our correspondent adds.
Two journalists who attempted to take photographs were beaten badly.
Later, a Ukrainian officer told a Daily Telegraph journalist that the stand-off had ended after the “talks”, and that the Russian lorries and about 30 to 60 Russians troops had withdrawn. No shots are believed to have been fired.
‘Mortal danger’
The Pentagon estimates that 20,000 Russian troops may now be in Crimea, while the Ukrainian border guards’ commander puts the figure at 30,000.
Ukraine’s team was represented by a lone flag-bearer at the Sochi Paralympic Winter Games opening ceremony
President Putin insists that the armed men are local “self-defence forces”, and are not under his command.
But he says Russia has the right to use force to protect Russian citizens and speakers who he says are threatened in post-uprising Ukraine.
His spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Russian state television on Friday: “Can Russia stand idly by when Russians somewhere in the world – especially in neighbouring Ukraine – face mortal danger?”
The BBC’s James Reynolds reports from government buildings in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, a focal point for tension
Calls for talks between Russia and Ukraine mediated by the West “make us smile”, he said.
The Russian foreign ministry separately accused the EU of taking an “extremely unconstructive position” by halting talks on easing visa restrictions on Russian citizens and on a new pact to replace the 1997 Russia-EU Partnership and Co-operation Agreement.
Meanwhile, Russia’s state-owned energy company, Gazprom, warned Ukraine that its gas supply might be cut off unless its $1.89bn (£1.13bn) of debts were cleared.
Gazprom halted supplies to Ukraine for almost two weeks in 2009, a move that caused shortages in Europe.
Ukrainian officials have said the state has come close to bankruptcy since protesters ousted President Yanukovych at the end of February. Officials say $35bn (£21bn) is needed to get through this year and 2015.
Mr Putin said he hoped the Paralympic Winter Games, which opened in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Friday, would help “lower the heat of passions over Ukraine”.
The Ukrainian team was represented only by a single athlete carrying the national flag at the opening ceremony.
Valeriy Sushkevych, head of the National Paralympic Committee of Ukraine, said its athletes had debated whether to boycott the Games but had decided to compete unless the “crisis were to escalate”.
U.S. to release information about Syria’s chemical weapons use
(CNN) — The Obama administration will release declassified intelligence Friday backing up a government assessment that the Syrian regime was responsible for a chemical weapons attack, a senior administration official said.
[U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s response to the vote was more diplomatic.
The United States respects the results, he told journalists in Manila, the Philippines. “Every nation has a responsibility to make their own decisions.”
The United States will continue to consult with the British government and still hope for “international collaboration.”
“Our approach is to continue to find an international coalition that will act together,” he said .]
This comes amid talk among major powers of a military response against the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The administration has said that the information would be made public by the end of the week.
But diplomatic and political developments this week raised the chances of the United States going it alone in a military intervention.
A U.N. Security Council meeting on Syria ended in deadlock, and in the U.S. Congress, doubts about military intervention are making the rounds.
And the United States’ closest ally, Great Britain, backed out of a possible coalition when its lawmakers voted down a proposal on military intervention.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said it is important for the United Kingdom to have a “robust response to the use of chemical weapons, and there are a series of things that (Britain) will continue to do.”British involvement in a military action “won’t be happening,” he said.
But diplomacy is continuing. Speaking in televised comments aired Friday, Cameron said he expects to speak to President Obama over the “next day or so.”
On Friday afternoon, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon intends to consult with countries at the United Nations on developments in Syria and is scheduled to meet with permanent members of the U.N. Security Council at noon Friday.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to speak about Syria at the State Department on Friday at 12:30 p.m. ET.
Iran: U.S. military action in Syria would spark ‘disaster’
Alone or together?
After the British vote, a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told CNN that going it alone was a real prospect.
“We care what they think. We value the process. But we’re going to make the decision we need to make,” the official said.
Former President George W. Bush said Obama’s “got a tough choice to make.”
“I was not a fan of Mr. Assad. He’s an ally of Iran, he’s made mischief,” he told Fox News on Friday. “If he (Obama) decides to use the military, he’s got the greatest military in the world backing him up.”
In a statement released Friday, former President Jimmy Carter said “a punitive military response without a U.N. Security Council mandate or broad support from NATO and the Arab League would be illegal under international law and unlikely to alter the course of the war.”
A former director of the CIA says he believes Obama would face off with al-Assad alone.
“I can’t conceive he would back down from a very serious course of action,” retired Gen. Michael Hayden told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
[…]
Chemical weapons in Syria: How did we get here?
The government of France supports military intervention, if evidence incriminates the government of using poison gas against civilians.
But on Friday, President Francois Hollande told French newspaper Le Monde that intervention should be limited and not include al-Assad’s overthrow.
Public opinion
Skeptics of military action have pointed at the decision to use force in Iraq, where the United States government under Bush marched to war based on a thin claim that former dictator Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction.
Opponents are conjuring up a possible repeat of that scenario in Syria, though the intelligence being gathered on the use of WMDs in Syria may be more sound.
Half of all Americans say they oppose possible U.S. military action against Syria, according to an NBC News survey released Friday.
Nearly eight in 10 of those questioned say Obama should be required to get congressional approval before launching any military attack against al-Assad’s forces
The poll, conducted Wednesday and Thursday, indicates that 50% of the public says the United States should not take military action against Damascus in response to the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons against its own citizens, with 42% saying military action is appropriate.
But the survey suggests that if any military action is confined to air strikes using cruise missiles, support rises. Fifty percent of a smaller sample asked that question say they support such an attack, with 44% opposing a cruise missile attack meant to destroy military units and infrastructure that have been used to carry out chemical attacks.
“Only 25% of the American people support military action in Syria,” former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson told CNN’s Piers Morgan on Thursday.
Convincing evidence
To shake off the specter of the Iraq war, the public needs convincing that chemical weapons were used and that al-Assad’s regime was behind it.
“You have to have almost incontrovertible proof,” Richardson told CNN’s Piers Morgan on Thursday.
It’s there, said Arizona Sen. John McCain, and will be visible soon. He thinks that comparisons to Iraq are overblown and that doubts are unfounded.
“Come on. Does anybody really believe that those aren’t chemical weapons — those bodies of those children stacked up?” the Republican senator asked Morgan.
Al-Assad’s government has claimed that jihadists fighting with the opposition carried out the chemical weapons attacks on August 21 to turn global sentiments against it.
Read UK intelligence on chemical weapons
McCain doesn’t buy it.
“The rebels don’t have those weapons,” he said.
The president also needs to assure Congress that a possible intervention would not get out of hand, said Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.
“The action has to have a very limited purpose, and the purpose is to deter future use of chemical weapons,” he said.
Why Russia, Iran and China are standing by al-Assad
Haunted by Iraq
The parliamentarians in London shot down the proposal in spite of intelligence allegedly incriminating the Assad government.
Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee has concluded it was “highly likely” that Syrian government forces used poison gas outside Damascus last week in an attack that killed at least 350 people, according to a summary of the committee’s findings released Thursday.
A yes vote would not have sent the UK straight into a deployment.
Cameron had said his government would not act without first hearing from the U.N. inspectors and giving Parliament another chance to vote on military action. But his opposition seemed to be reminded of the Iraq war.
Opinion: For the U.S., Syria is a problem from hell
“I think today the House of Commons spoke for the British people who said they didn’t want a rush to war, and I was determined we learned the lessons of Iraq, and I’m glad we’ve made the prime minister see sense this evening,” Labour Party leader Ed Miliband told the Press Association.
The no vote came after a long day of debate, and it appeared to catch Cameron and his supporters by surprise.
For days, the prime minister has been sounding a call for action, lending support to talk of a U.S.- or Western-led strike against Syria.
“I strongly believe in the need for a tough response to the use of chemical weapons, but I also believe in respecting the will of this House of Commons,” the prime minister said.
“We will not be taking part in military action,” Cameron said Friday. “The British Parliament has spoken very, very clearly,” he said.
Though Cameron did not need parliamentary approval to commit to an intervention, he felt it important “to act as a democrat, to act a different way to previous prime ministers and properly consult Parliament,” he said Friday.
He regrets not being able to build a consensus of lawmakers, he said.
Letter from al-Assad
Before the vote, Syria’s government offered its own arguments against such an intervention. In an open letter to British lawmakers, the speaker of Syria’s parliament riffed on British literary hero William Shakespeare, saying: “If you bomb us, shall we not bleed?”
But the letter also invoked Iraq, a conflict justified on the grounds that Iraq had amassed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was working toward a nuclear bomb — claims that were discovered to have been false after the 2003 invasion.
“Those who want to send others to fight will talk in the Commons of the casualties in the Syrian conflict. But before you rush over the cliffs of war, would it not be wise to pause? Remember the thousands of British soldiers killed and maimed in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead, both in the war and in the continuing chaos.”
British Commons Speaker John Bercow published the letter.
U.N. deadlock
Lack of support for military intervention at the United Nations on Thursday was less of a surprise.
Russia, which holds a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, is one of Syria’s closest allies and is most certain to veto any resolution against al-Assad’s government that involves military action.
Moscow reiterated the stance Friday.
“Russia is against any resolution of the U.N. Security Council, which may contain an option for use of force,” Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said Friday.
Map: U.S. and allied assets around Syria
A closed-door Security Council meeting called by Russia ended with no agreement on a resolution to address the growing crisis in Syria, a Western diplomat told CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh on condition of anonymity.
U.N. weapons inspectors are now in Syria trying to confirm the use of chemical weapons. The inspectors are expected to leave the country by Saturday morning.
They are to brief U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who, in turn, will swiftly brief the Security Council on the findings.
Congressional jitters
The president is facing doubts at home as well: More than 160 members of Congress, including 63 Democrats, have now signed letters calling for either a vote or at least a “full debate” before any U.S. action.
The author of one of those letters, Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee of California, said Obama should seek “an affirmative decision of Congress” before committing American forces.
More than 90 members of Congress, most of them Republican, signed another letter by GOP Rep. Scott Rigell of Virginia. That letter urged Obama “to consult and receive authorization” before authorizing any such military action.
Congress is in recess until September 9.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama was still weighing a potential response to the chemical weapons attacks.
The president has said that he is not considering a no-fly zone and has ruled out U.S. boots on the ground in Syria.
Al-Assad has vowed to defend his country against any outside attack.
UK Government’s legal position on Syrian regime’s chemical weapon use
Chinese President Hu Jintao left Chicago for home on Friday after concluding a four-day state visit to the United States, during which Hu and his US counterpart Barack Obama agreed to build a China-US cooperative partnership based on mutual respect and mutual benefit.
“It is also conducive to world peace and development,” Hu said.
In his speech, Hu elaborated on the domestic and foreign policies of the Chinese government and on how to advance China-US relations in the new era.
“Working together hand in hand, we will build and develop a China-US cooperative partnership based on mutual respect and mutual benefit and deliver greater benefits to the people of our two countries and the world over,” he said.
The Chinese president flew to Chicago on Thursday afternoon to continue his visit to the United States.
On Friday, Hu, accompanied by local officials, visited Walter Payton College Preparatory High School in downtown Chicago.
The high school houses the Confucius Institute in Chicago (CIC), which primarily focuses on the Chinese language and cultural education programs and is the only such institute targeting primary and middle school students in the United States.
Later in the day, Hu visited an exhibition of companies operating in the US Midwest. Most companies at the exhibition in Chicago’s suburban city of Woodridge are Chinese-funded ones.
During his tour of the exhibition, Hu encouraged Chinese companies operating in the US to play a bigger role in promoting economic and trade cooperation between the two countries.
The success of Chinese companies in the United States is a specific example of the China-US mutually beneficial cooperation, he said.
The operation of these companies not only yields profits for themselves, but adds momentum to economic development in the US Midwest, he added.
At least 40 Chinese businesses now have operations in the Chicago area, and the number is growing. For example, Wanxiang America Corp., which makes solar panels, has opened plants and a headquarters around Chicago in the last two years.
Before leaving the US for home, Hu sent a message of thanks to US President Obama, expressing his belief that through the efforts of the two sides, China-US relations would be further developed to better benefit the peoples of the two countries and make a greater contribution to world peace, stability and prosperity.
The Chinese president began his state visit on Tuesday in Washington. The visit, Hu’s second as head of state, is aimed at enhancing the positive, cooperative and comprehensive relationship between the two countries.
Hu last visited the United States in April 2006.
President Hu, who began his visit on Tuesday, had extensive and in-depth discussions with Obama at the White House on Wednesday on major bilateral, regional and world issues.
Istanbul, Dec 21 (DPA) The Turkish government has warned US President Barack Obama that a congressional vote on a resolution recognising the massacre of Armenians during World War I as a ‘genocide’ could severely damage relations, the Turkish press reported Tuesday.
The US House of Representatives has tentatively planned a vote on the resolution for Tuesday, just before the 111th congress concludes. In March, the non-binding resolution was passed by a 23-22 vote in the House’s Foreign Affairs Committee, a move Turkey protested by withdrawing its ambassador to Washington for one month.
Armenians contend that up to 1.5 million of their people were systematically killed by the Ottoman Turks in 1915. The US has approximately one million citizens of Armenian descent and the diaspora has rallied for recognition of the killings as a ‘genocide’.
Turkey has long denied the genocide claim, saying the number of Armenians killed is much lower than claimed and that the deaths were the result of intercommunal violence at the time that also affected other ethnic groups.
The Turkish government and Turkish-American advocacy groups have engaged in an intense lobbying effort to prevent the resolution from going to a vote in the House.
On Monday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a letter to Obama saying that the vote could cause a major rift in relations, according to reports in the Turkish press. ‘We are expecting that you will step in and intervene in Congress,’ Erdogan’s letter reportedly said.
Although Turkey refuses to recognise the genocide claim, relations between the current Turkish and Armenian governments have slightly improved over the last couple of years.
In October 2009, the two governments signed accords to renew diplomatic relations and open their border. However, neither country has fully ratified the accords, and the process has stalled.
Ankara has warned that the passing of the genocide resolution in the US House could lead to a rupture in relations with Washington and could harm the already tentative reconciliation process between Turkey and Armenia.
The Obama administration has opposed the House resolution for the same reasons.
In 2007, then president George W. Bush successfully pressured the House not to bring a similar genocide resolution to a floor vote, averting a diplomatic crisis between Turkey and the US.
A Chinese-born American geologist has been sentenced to eight years in jail in China for stealing state secrets.
Xue Feng, 44, was detained in 2007 after negotiating the sale of an oil industry database to his employers, an American consultancy company.
Mr Xue said the information he had acquired about China’s oil industry was publicly available. He claimed he had been tortured while in detention.
The US embassy said it was “dismayed” and called for his immediate release.
The jail term handed down was described by his lawyer as “very heavy”. Mr Xue was also fined 200,000 yuan (£19,500; $30,000).
Mr Xue’s crime was to arrange the sale of an openly available database about China’s largely state-controlled oil industry to his US consulting firm IHS Energy, now known as IHS inc.
The geologist has claimed that interrogators burned his arms with cigarettes and hit him on the head with an ashtray.
The US Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, was at court for the sentencing, in a show of high-level US concern over the case.
The embassy later issued a statement saying it was dismayed and urged China to grant Mr Xue “humanitarian release and immediately deport him”.
Three Chinese nationals were also sentenced for illegally providing intelligence abroad.
Li Yongbo was sentenced to six years in jail, and Chen Mengjin and Li Dongxu were both given two-and-a-half-year sentences.
The BBC’s Damian Grammaticas in Beijing says that after this case foreign businesses in China are likely to tread even more warily when dealing with information about state firms.
Draft regulations released by China’s government earlier this year defined business information held by state firms as state secrets.
Legal observers have also voiced concern that China’s courts are ignoring legal procedures when dealing with sensitive cases.
In Xue Feng’s case the two-and-a-half-years it has taken to reach a verdict they say breaches China’s own legal time limits.
Pro-Russian troops have been blockading key installations in Crimea for a number of days
The majority Russian-speaking Crimea region is of political and strategic significance to both Russia and Ukraine
Ukraine’s team was represented by a lone flag-bearer at the Sochi Paralympic Winter Games opening ceremony
