Tag Archives: Russia

Palestinian leader Abbas KGB spy in 1980’s according to documents

Gideon Remez, one of the Israeli researchers who said on Thursday that Soviet-era documents showed that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas worked in the 1980s for the KGB, speaks to Reuters during an interview in Jerusalem

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Soviet-era documents show that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas worked in the 1980s for the KGB, the now-defunct intelligence agency where Russian leader Vladimir Putin once served, Israeli researchers said on Thursday.

The Palestinian government denied that Abbas, who received a PhD in Moscow in 1982, had been a Soviet spy, and it accused Israel of “waging a smear campaign” aimed at derailing efforts to revive peace negotiations that collapsed in 2014.

The allegations, first reported by Israel’s Channel One television on Wednesday, surfaced as Russia pressed ahead with an offer by Putin, made last month, to host a meeting in Moscow between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Both leaders have agreed in principle to a summit, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday, but it gave no date.

Gideon Remez, a researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Truman Institute, said an Abbas-KGB connection emerged from documents smuggled out of Russia by former KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin in 1991.

Some of the material, now in the Churchill Archives of Britain’s Cambridge University, was released two years ago for public research, and the Truman Institute requested a file marked “the Middle East”, Remez told Reuters.

“There’s a group of summaries or excerpts there that all come under a headline of persons cultivated by the KGB in the year 1983,” he said.

“Now one of these items is all of two lines … it starts with the codename of the person, ‘Krotov’, which is derived from the Russian word for ‘mole’, and then ‘Abbas, Mahmoud, born 1935 in Palestine, member of the central committee of Fatah and the PLO, in Damascus ‘agent of the KGB’,” Remez said.

Abbas is a founding member of Fatah, the dominant faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the main Palestinian nationalist movement. He became Palestinian president in 2005.

The documents cited by Remez did not give any indication of what role Abbas may have played for the KGB or the duration of his purported service as an agent.

A Palestinian official, who declined to be identified as he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said that Abbas had served as an “official liaison with the Soviets, so he hardly needed to be a spy”, without elaborating.

The official said any suggestion that the president was a spy was “absolutely absurd”.

Adding to the intrigue, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, whom Putin has tasked with arranging the Moscow summit, served two stints in the Soviet embassy in Damascus between 1983 and 1994, covering the period in which Abbas was purportedly recruited.

Bogdanov was in the area this week for meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials.

(Additional reporting by Luke Baker; Editing by Pravin Char)

With Syria ‘safe zone’ plan, Turkey faces diplomatic balancing act

A general view shows a damaged street with sandbags used as barriers in Aleppo's Saif al-Dawla district, Syria

By Orhan Coskun and Ercan Gurses

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey will have to strike a balance between the conflicting goals of Russia and the United States if it is to achieve its ambition of a “safe zone” in northern Syria and build on an incursion which gave it control of a thin strip of the border.

Turkey has for several years called for world powers to help create a zone to protect civilians in its war-torn southern neighbor, with the dual aim of clearing its border of Islamic State and Kurdish militia fighters and of stemming a wave of migration that has caused tensions with Europe.

Western allies have so far balked at the idea, saying it would require a significant ground force and planes to patrol a “no-fly zone”, a major commitment in such a crowded and messy battlefield. Russia, which backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has meanwhile argued in the past that any foreign incursion would be illegal.

But Turkey’s offensive into northern Syria, launched with its Syrian rebel allies two weeks ago, has created what officials in Ankara are already calling a “de facto safe zone”, driving Islamic State militants from the last 90-km (55-mile) strip of border territory they still controlled.

Turkey now wants international support for a deeper operation to take control of a rectangle of territory stretching about 40 km into Syria, a buffer between two Kurdish-held cantons to the east and west and against Islamic State to the south.

“The first phase of the plan has been achieved. Turkey no longer has borders with Islamic State. But this area is still very thin and vulnerable to attacks from the other side,” said a senior Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity so as to discuss the strategy more freely.

“What will be done now will depend on coordination with coalition powers and the support they will provide,” he said, adding an improvement in relations with Russia had “eased Turkey’s hand” operationally.

The Turkish-backed rebels, mainly Syrian Arabs and Turkmen fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, took charge of the frontier between the towns of Azaz and Jarablus on Sunday after seizing 20 villages from the ultra-hardline Islamists.

Ahmed Osman, commander of the Sultan Murad rebel group, one of the Turkish-backed forces, told Reuters he would like to see a permanent “safe zone” but that this would require an agreement between Turkey, the United States and Russia.

CONFLICTING INTERESTS

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, his hand strengthened by Turkey’s incursion, said on Monday he had raised the issue of a “safe zone” again with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama at the G20 summit in China.

Neither commented directly on the Turkish proposal, though both said they wanted to build cooperation in fighting terrorism in Syria. Erdogan’s spokesman said there were neither objections nor clear signs of support in the meetings.

A second senior Turkish official acknowledged both Washington and Russia “had their hesitations” but that a “de facto safe zone” had now become a reality on the ground and that their support, particularly in establishing a no-fly zone, was crucial.

Metin Gurcan, a former major in the Turkish military and an analyst for the Al Monitor online journal, said Washington and Moscow’s divergent agendas in Syria raised serious questions about the viability of the Turkish plans.

“We are talking about two superpowers with great stakes in Syria. They have contradicting strategic interests about the end goal in Syria,” he said.

More than five years of civil war have cut Syria into a patchwork of territories held by the government and an often competing array of armed factions, including Kurdish militia fighters, a loose coalition of rebels groups, and Islamic State.

The priority for Washington, which backs rebel factions fighting Assad in the civil war, is destroying Islamic State and it has been at odds with Turkey over the role of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia. The United States has backed the Kurdish fighters against the jihadists, but Turkey sees them as a hostile force linked to Kurdish militants on its own soil.

The two NATO allies have reached an uneasy agreement under which YPG fighters are meant to remain east of the Euphrates river, just outside Turkey’s proposed buffer zone, although Ankara has said it has yet to verify that they are doing so.

Turkey meanwhile appears to be navigating Russian concerns more smoothly since restoring relations with Moscow in August, nine months after ties were broken when it shot down a Russian fighter jet near the Syrian border.

Erdogan’s spokesman said on Tuesday that Russia had voiced full support for Turkey’s operation to clear the border of Islamic State. For its part, Turkey has been less insistent on Assad’s immediate exit.

“They appear to be lessening their demands for the ouster of Assad in deference to their new relationship with Russia,” said James Stavridis, former NATO supreme commander and dean at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

‘ARMAGEDDON’

Aside from the diplomatic challenges, a push deeper into Syria by the Turkish-backed Arab and Turkmen rebels poses significant military risks.

The Turkish-backed forces have been advancing toward Manbij, a city around 30 km south of Jarablus that was captured last month from Islamic State by a U.S.-backed coalition that includes the YPG. The Kurdish fighters are since supposed to have pulled back east of the Euphrates.

“We know there are de facto YPG factions still there. If they don’t retreat, Turkey will be determined and return Manbij to its owners,” said Yasin Aktay, a spokesman for Turkey’s ruling AK Party, referring to Arab and Turkmen communities who lived there before civil war broke out in 2011.

The Islamic State-held town of Al-Bab, west of Manbij, is another a key strategic target for both Turkish-backed and Kurdish forces where Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, one of Islamic State’s most prominent leaders, is thought to have been killed in a U.S. air strike last week.

To its northwest is the village of Dabiq – the site, according to Islamic prophecy, of a final battle between Muslims and infidels, an event in Islamic State propaganda that will herald the apocalypse.

“The fight for the Turkish-backed rebels is going to get tougher as they proceed south,” said a former Turkish soldier and security analyst Abdullah Agar. “According to Islamic State’s beliefs, they will face Armageddon here.”

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut, Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara and Humeyra Pamuk, Edmund Blair and Akin Aytekin in Istanbul; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Pravin Char)

U.S. Russia work on Syria truce as Islamic State blasts kill dozens

Syrian army soldiers and civilians inspect the site of two explosions that hit the Arzouna bridge area at the entrance to Tartous

By Lisa Barrington and Roberta Rampton

BEIRUT/HANGZHOU, China (Reuters) – The United States and Russia will work in the next few days on a deal to curb fighting in Syria and build cooperation in the fight against terrorism, their leaders said on Monday, as blasts claimed by Islamic State killed dozens across the Arab nation.

The former Cold War enemies have been trying to broker a new truce after a ceasefire agreed in February unravelled in weeks, with Washington accusing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces – which are backed by Russia – of violating the pact.

U.S. President Barack Obama described talks with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin as tough but productive after their meeting at the G20 summit in China. Putin said the two men had understood each other and an agreement on ways to significantly reduce the violence in Syria could be reached in days.

“We have had some productive conversations about what a real cessation of hostilities would look like, that would allow us both, the United States and Russia, to focus our attention on common enemies, like ISIL and Nusra,” Obama said, referring to Islamic State and the hardline Nusra Front.

“We haven’t yet closed the gaps in a way where we think it would actually work,” he said, but added that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov would “keep working at it over the next several days”.

Putin told journalists there was a convergence of views between Russia and the United States. He said it was premature to give details about the terms of an agreement, but that the two nations would strengthen cooperation on fighting terrorism.

Truce talks were complicated on Sunday as government forces and their allies laid siege to the rebel-held eastern side of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war which Assad is determined to fully recapture. His gains have relied heavily on Russian air support since September last year.

Adding to the carnage, six blasts on Monday hit west of Damascus and the government-held cities of Homs and Tartous, as well as the Kurdish-controlled northeastern province of Hasaka, state media and a monitoring group said.

Islamic State fighters carried the out suicide attacks, its Amaq news agency said on Monday.

CONFLICTING AGENDAS

More than five years of civil war have cut Syria into a patchwork of territories held by the government and an often competing array of armed factions, including Kurdish militia fighters, a loose coalition of rebels groups, and Islamic State.

Obama and Putin discussed getting humanitarian aid into the country, reducing violence, and cooperating on combating militant groups, the U.S. administration official said.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he was working with the U.S.-led coalition and Russia to try to establish a ceasefire in Aleppo before the Eid al-Adha religious holiday expected to start around Sept. 11.

But in talks earlier on Monday, Kerry and Lavrov were unable to come to terms on a truce for the second time in two weeks, with U.S. officials stressing they would walk away if a pact could not be reached soon.

Russia says it cannot agree to a deal unless opposition fighters, backed by the United States and Middle East allies, are separated from al Qaeda-linked militants they overlap with in some areas. For Washington, the priority is stabilising Syria so as to destroy Islamic State.

NATO Turkey ally on Sunday said rebels it was backing had gained control of all areas on its border that had been held by the jihadists, depriving the ultra-hardline Islamist group of its main route to the outside world.

The announcement came some 10 days after Turkey launched its first major military incursion into Syria since the start of the war in 2011, an operation aimed as much at preventing further Kurdish territorial gains as at driving back Islamic State.

“Syrian citizens in our country and those would want to migrate from Syria can now live more peacefully in their own land,” Erdogan said, adding the Turkish incursion posed no threat to Syria’s territorial integrity.

He renewed calls for an internationally-policed “no-fly zone” to protect displaced civilians and help stem refugee flows. But the idea, which he also raised at a G20 summit in Turkey a year ago, has failed to gain traction with Western allies who fear it would mean a deeper military commitment.

DOZENS KILLED

Two of the explosions on Monday hit the Arzouna bridge area at the entrance to the Mediterranean city of Tartous, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and state news agency SANA said. The Observatory and a city hospital put the death toll at 35.

Syrian state television said the first explosion was a car bomb and the second a suicide belt detonated as rescue workers arrived. The blasts hit during a summer festival at Tartous, whose beaches recently featured in a government tourism video.

A car bomb meanwhile struck the city of Homs, around 80 km (50 miles) east of Tartous. The Observatory said the explosion hit an army checkpoint and four officers were killed.

West of Damascus, there was an explosion near the town of al Saboura, killing one person and injuring three, according to a police commander quoted by state media.

A motorbike also exploded in the centre of the northeastern city of Hasaka, which is controlled by the Kurdish YPG militia. The Observatory said the blast killed three members of a YPG-affiliated security force and that a percussion bomb also went off in the province’s Qamishli city.

The Kurdish YPG militia, a critical part of the U.S.-backed campaign against Islamic State, took almost complete control of Hasaka city in late August after a week of fighting with the government.

The YPG controls swathes of northern Syria where Kurdish groups have established de facto autonomy since the start of the Syrian war, much to the alarm of neighbouring Turkey, which fears the creation of a Kurdish enclave in northern Syria would fuel Kurdish separatist ambitions at home.

Ankara has demanded that Kurdish militia fighters remain east of the Euphrates river, something Washington has promised they will do. Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition, visited Syria last week and emphasised “the need for strict adherence to prior commitments, a State Department spokeswoman said.

(Additional reporting by Kinda Makieh in Damascus and Ahmed Tolba in Cairo, Lesley Wroughton and Arshad Mohammed in Washington, Vladimir Soldatkin in Hangzhou, Humeyra Pamuk and Edmund Blair in Istanbul; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Giles Elgood and Anna Willard)

Blasts kill dozens in Syria as U.S.-Russia truce talks make little progress

Syrian army soldiers inspect the damage at the site of two explosions that hit the Arzouna bridge area at the entrance to Tartous, Syria

By Lisa Barrington and Roberta Rampton

BEIRUT/HANGZHOU, China (Reuters) – Explosions in government-controlled areas of Syria and a province held by Kurdish militia killed dozens on Monday, while the United States and Russia failed to make concrete progress towards a ceasefire.

Six explosions hit west of the capital Damascus, in the government-held cities of Homs and Tartous – which hosts a Russian military base – and the Kurdish-controlled northeastern province of Hasaka between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. (0500-0600 GMT), state media and a monitor said.

It was not clear if the blasts were linked and there was no immediate claim of responsibility.

More than five years of civil war have cut Syria into a patchwork of territories held by the government and an often competing array of armed factions, including Kurdish militia fighters, a loose coalition of rebels groups, and Islamic State.

The United States and Russia have been trying to broker a new truce after a cessation of hostilities agreed in February unraveled within weeks, with Washington accusing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces of violating the pact.

Their efforts were complicated on Sunday as government forces and their allies again laid siege to rebel-held eastern Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war which Assad is determined to fully recapture. His gains have relied heavily on Russian air support since September last year.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin had a longer-than-expected discussion of about 90 minutes on Monday about whether, and how, they could agree a deal, a senior U.S. administration official said.

Meeting at the G20 summit in China, they discussed getting humanitarian aid into the country, reducing violence, and cooperating on combating militant groups, the official said.

But in talks earlier on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were unable to come to terms on a ceasefire for the second time in two weeks, with U.S. officials stressing they would walk away if a pact could not be reached soon.

“If an agreement can be reached, we want to do so urgently, because of the humanitarian situation. However, we must ensure that it is an effective agreement,” the official said.

Russia says it cannot agree to a deal unless opposition fighters, backed by the United States and Middle East allies, are separated from al Qaeda-linked militants they overlap with in some areas.

For Washington, the priority is stabilizing Syria so as to destroy Islamic State, which controls territory both there and in neighboring Iraq.

NATO Turkey ally on Sunday said rebels it was backing had gained control of all areas on its border that had been held by the jihadists, depriving the ultra-hardline Islamist group of its main route to the outside world.

The announcement came some 10 days after Turkey launched its first major military incursion into Syria since the start of the war in 2011, an operation aimed as much at preventing further Kurdish territorial gains as at driving back Islamic State.

DOZENS KILLED

Two of the explosions on Monday hit the Arzouna bridge area at the entrance to the Mediterranean city of Tartous, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and state news agency SANA said. Islamic State attacked Tartous in May.

The Observatory and a city hospital put the death toll at 35, including members of the Syrian military, and said the number was likely to rise.

Syrian state television said the first explosion was a car bomb and the second a suicide belt detonated as rescue workers arrived. The blasts hit during a summer festival at Tartous, whose beaches recently featured in a government tourism video.

A car bomb meanwhile struck Homs, a city around 80 km (50 miles) east of Tartous which has repeatedly been hit by bombings claimed by Islamic State. State media said three people were killed, while the Observatory said the explosion hit an army checkpoint and four officers were killed.

West of Damascus, there was an explosion near the town of al Saboura, killing one person and injuring three, according to a police commander quoted by state media.

A motorbike also exploded in the centre of the northeastern city of Hasaka, which is controlled by the Kurdish YPG militia.

The Observatory said the blast killed three members of a YPG-affiliated security force known as the Asayish, and injured others. It said a percussion bomb also went off in the province’s Qamishli city.

The Kurdish YPG militia, a critical part of the U.S.-backed campaign against Islamic State, took almost complete control of Hasaka city in late August after a week of fighting with the government.

Islamic State confirmed that a blast in Hasaka took place but did not say whether its fighters were involved.

The YPG already controls swathes of northern Syria where Kurdish groups have established de facto autonomy since the start of the Syrian war in 2011, much to the alarm of neighboring Turkey.

Ankara sees the YPG as an extension of Kurdish militants who have waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey and fears the creation of a Kurdish enclave in northern Syria would fuel their separatist ambitions.

(Additional reporting by Kinda Makieh in Damascus and Ahmed Tolba in Cairo, Lesley Wroughton in Washington; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Netanyahu considering offer of talks with Palestinian president in Moscow

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks on during a visit at the "Tamra HaEmek" elementary school on the first day of the school year, in the Arab Israeli town of Tamra, Israel September 1,

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering an offer by Russian President Vladimir Putin to host talks in Moscow between the Israeli leader and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Netanyahu’s office said on Monday.

It said in a statement Netanyahu, at a meeting with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, “presented Israel’s position whereby he is always ready to meet (Abbas) without preconditions and is therefore considering the Russian president’s proposal and the timing for a possible meeting”.

A spokesman for Abbas, who is on a visit to Europe, declined immediate comment.

The last Israeli-Palestinian peace talks collapsed in 2014.

With his eye on shifting big-power influence in the Middle East, Netanyahu has visited Russia for talks with Putin three times in the last year, and the two also speak on occasion by phone to discuss regional issues.

(Reporting by Jeffrey Heller; editing by Luke Baker)

Putin says he doesn’t know who hacked U.S. Democratic Party

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Vladivostok

By Jack Stubbs

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said he did not know who was behind the hacking of U.S. Democratic Party organizations but the information uncovered was important, Bloomberg news agency reported on Friday.

In an interview two days before a G20 meeting in China with U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders, Putin said it might be impossible to establish who engineered the release of sensitive Democratic Party emails but it was not done by the Russian government.

“Does it even matter who hacked this data?” Putin said. “The important thing is the content that was given to the public.”

“There’s no need to distract the public’s attention from the essence of the problem by raising some minor issues connected with the search for who did it,” he added. “But I want to tell you again, I don’t know anything about it, and on a state level Russia has never done this.”

The hacked emails, released by activist group WikiLeaks in July, appeared to show favoritism within the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and prompted the resignation of the body’s chairwoman.

A computer network used by Clinton’s campaign, and the party’s fundraising committee for the U.S. House of Representatives were also hacked.

Clinton, who polls show as leading Donald Trump in the campaign for the U.S. presidential election in November, has said Russian intelligence services conducted a cyber attack against her party. Some officials have suggested Moscow is trying to influence the U.S. election.

Putin dismissed the allegations. “We have never interfered, are not interfering and do not intend to interfere in domestic politics,” he said.

“We will carefully watch what happens and wait for the election results. Then we are ready to work with any American administration, if they want to themselves.”

Relations between Russia and United States hit a post-Cold War low in 2014 over the Ukraine crisis, and Washington and Moscow have since clashed over diverging policies in Syria.

Obama said in August he would discuss the cyber attack with Putin if Russia was responsible, but it would not “wildly” alter the two countries’ relationship.

The U.S. election contest has been hard fought and frequently dominated by both candidates’ attitudes toward Russia.

Clinton has rounded on her Republican rival Trump for his perceived praise of Putin and what she says is an “absolute allegiance” to Russia’s foreign policy aims. Trump, in return, has said Clinton’s own close ties to the Russian president deserve greater scrutiny.

Putin said both candidates were using shock tactics and that playing “the anti-Russian card” was short-sighted.

“I wouldn’t like for us to follow their example,” he said. “I don’t think they are setting the best example.”

(Reporting by Katya Golubkova,; Writing by Jack Stubbs,; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Mark Trevelyan)

German official calls for U.N. sanctions against Syria

A boy rides a bicycle near rubble of damaged buildings in the rebel held al-Maadi district of Aleppo, Syria,

BERLIN (Reuters) – Gernot Erler, the German government’s point man on Russia, urged the United Nations on Thursday to seek sanctions against Syria for two chlorine gas attacks on civilians, despite Moscow’s threat to veto such a measure.

“The United Nations should prepare clear sanctions, despite the Russian veto threat,” Erler told Germany’s Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung in an interview.

“Moscow is obviously more concerned about being seen as a friend of the criminal Assad regime than in taking joint action and sanctions against this provocative treaty violation,” Erler, a member of the Social Democrats, the junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition, told the newspaper.

An inquiry by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), unanimously authorized by the 15-member Security Council, also found that Islamic State militants used sulfur mustard gas.

“The findings are clear,” Erler said. He added that Russia needed to decide if it wanted to risk international isolation in this case.

Russia, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his war with rebels fighting to topple him, and China have previously protected the Damascus government from Council action by blocking several resolutions, including a bid to refer the conflict in Syria to the International Criminal Court.

The Security Council on Tuesday began to discuss whether to impose sanctions on people or entities linked to two chlorine gas attacks on civilians that the United Nations and the global chemical weapons watchdog blamed on the Syrian government.

The report’s results have set the stage for a Security Council showdown between the five veto-wielding powers, likely pitting Russia and China against the United States, Britain and France over how to respond.

Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said he is prepared to work with the United States on a response, but that first the council members must exchange analyses of the report, which he described as very complicated.

Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons in 2013 under a deal brokered by Moscow and Washington. The Security Council passed a resolution that said in the event of non-compliance, including “the use of chemical weapons by anyone” in Syria, it would impose measures under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which deals with sanctions.

The Security Council would need to adopt another resolution to impose targeted sanctions – a travel ban and asset freeze – on people or entities linked to the attacks.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Iran deploys Russian-made S-300 missiles at its Fordow nuclear site

File photo of the S-300 air defence system launching a missile during the International Army Games 2016 at the Ashuluk military polygon outside Astrakhan

ANKARA (Reuters) – Iran has deployed the Russian-supplied S-300 surface-to-air missile defence system around its Fordow underground uranium enrichment facility, Iranian state media reported on Monday.

Iranian state TV on Sunday aired footage of deployment of the recently delivered missile system to the nuclear site in the central Iran.

“Our main priority is to protect Iran’s nuclear facilities under any circumstances,” Brigadier General Farzad Esmaili, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) air defense force told state TV.

Iran and the six major powers reached a landmark nuclear deal in 2015 aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for lifting nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Tehran over its disputed nuclear work.

Enrichment of uranium at the Fordow facility, around 100 km (60 miles) south of Tehran, has stopped since the implementation of the nuclear deal in January.

Russia, under pressure from the West, in 2010 canceled a contract to deliver S-300s to Iran. But Russian President Vladimir Putin lifted that self-imposed ban in April 2015, after an interim deal was reached between Iran and the six powers.

In August, Iran said that Russia had delivered main parts of the system to the country, adding that the missile system would be completely delivered by the end of 2016.

The IRGC’s Esmaili did not say whether the system was operational, but added: “Today, Iran’s sky is one of the most secure in the Middle East”.

Iran’s top authority Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday that the country’s military power was for defensive purposes.

“The S-300 system is a defence system not an assault one, but the Americans did their utmost to prevent Iran from getting it,” Khamenei said in a speech broadcast live on state TV.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Toby Chopra)

To deter refugees, Norway readies fence on ex cold war border

Two migrants on bicycles cross the border between Norway and Russia in Storskog near Kirkenes in Northern Norway

By Alister Doyle

OSLO (Reuters) – Norway is putting up a steel fence at a remote Arctic border post with Russia after an influx of migrants last year, sparking an outcry from refugees’ rights groups and fears that cross- border ties with the former Cold War adversary will be harmed.

The government says a new gate and a fence, about 200 meters (660 feet) long and 3.5 meters high stretching from the Storskog border point, is needed to tighten security at a northern outpost of Europe’s passport-free Schengen zone.

For decades, the Nordics have enjoyed the image of being a reliable haven for asylum seekers.

But the erection of the fence, at a spot where 5,500 migrants mainly from Syria crossed into Norway last year, reflects a wider shift in public attitudes against refugees.

This is seen too in Sweden, Norway’s neighbor, which was once touted as a “humanitarian superpower”, but is setting up border controls this year and has toughened asylum rules.

Refugee groups and some opposition politicians say Norway’s fence will deter people fleeing persecution and is an unwelcome echo of the Cold War in a region where relations have generally flourished since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

The fence will be erected in the coming weeks, before winter frosts set in, to make it harder to slip into Norway via a forest. Workers have so far done some preparatory work, clearing away old wooden barriers put up to control reindeer herds.

“The gate and the fence are responsible measures,” Deputy Justice Minister Ove Vanebo told Reuters, defending the move.

Both Moscow and Oslo have cracked down on the Arctic route, one that a few refugees found less risky than crossing the Mediterranean by boat, since last year’s inflow of migrants.

So far this year, no one has sought asylum via the northern frontier, according to the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration.

“I can’t see a need for a fence. There are too many fences going up in Europe today,” said Rune Rafaelsen, the mayor of the Soer-Varanger region which includes the border, told Reuters, pointing to barbed wire in nations such as Hungary.

Russia still maintains a fence the length of the 196 km frontier with NATO member Norway, sometimes several kilometers back from the dividing line. It has not complained about the Norwegian plans to build a fence.

But Rafaelsen, of the opposition Labour Party, said the region had made great progress in improving civilian ties since an Iron Curtain divided Norway from the Soviet Union and he, and others, saw the plans for a fence as a backward step.

“We’ve an obligation to be a country people can flee to,” said Linn Landro, of the Refugees Welcome group in Norway. “The fence sends a very negative signal, including to Russia because it says that ‘we don’t trust you’.”

Norwegians and Russians in the region can visit visa-free for short trips. About 250,000 people crossed the border last year, a decline from recent years but to be compared with just 5,000 a year in the Cold War.

Norway’s border Commissioner Roger Jakobsen said a weak rouble has made Norway more costly for Russians, road repairs have made crossings harder and ties have cooled after Norway and other Western nations imposed sanctions after Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014.

He doubted the fence would be a new deterrent and said there had been no complaints from Russia. “We shouldn’t make a storm in a teacup out of it,” he said.

(Reporting By Alister Doyle; Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Richard Balmforth)

Iran says Russian use of air base for Syria strikes over ‘for now’

Still image shows shows airstrikes carried out by Russian air force in Syria

By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin

DUBAI (Reuters) – Russia has stopped using an Iranian air base for strikes in Syria, Iran’s foreign ministry announced on Monday, bringing an abrupt halt to an unprecedented deployment that was criticized both by the White House and some Iranian lawmakers.

Last week long-range Russian Tupolev-22M3 bombers and Sukhoi-34 fighter bombers used Nojeh air base, near the city of Hamadan, in north-west Iran to launch air strikes against armed groups in Syria.

It was the first time a foreign power used an Iranian base since World War Two. Russia and Iran are both providing crucial military support to President Bashar al-Assad against rebels and jihadi fighters in Syria’s five-year-old conflict.

Some Iranian lawmakers called the move a breach of Iran’s constitution which forbids “the establishment of any kind of foreign military base in Iran, even for peaceful purposes”.

Iranian Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan dismissed that criticism but also chided Moscow for publicizing the move, describing it as showing off and a “betrayal of trust.”

“We have not given any military base to the Russians and they are not here to stay,” Dehghan was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency late on Sunday.

He said there was “no written agreement” between the two countries and the “operational cooperation” was temporary and limited to refueling.

The U.S. state department last week called the move “unfortunate but not surprising,” and said it was looking into whether it violated UN Security Council resolution 2231, which prohibits supply, sale and transfer of combat aircraft to Iran.

ABRUPT END

On Monday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Russia’s use of the base has ended.

“Russia has no base in Iran and is not stationed here. They did this (operation) and it is finished for now,” Bahram Qasemi was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency.

Iran’s defense minister had said last week that Russia will be permitted to use the Nojeh base “for as long as they need”.

Relations between the two countries, long cordial, appeared to reach a new level last September when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a military intervention in Syria in support of Assad.

After some delay, Russia supplied Iran with its S-300 missile air defense system, evidence of a growing partnership that is testing U.S. influence in the Middle East.

Dehghan said that to make up for the delay, Russia had suggested providing Iran with its advanced S-400, but that Tehran was not interested as it is working to advance its own home-made defense system.

Iran unveiled its new missile defense system, Bavar 373, on Monday, a system designed to intercept cruise missiles, drones, combat aircraft and ballistic missiles.

Iran’s defense minister also said Tehran has shown interest in buying Russian Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets and Moscow’s reply “has not been negative so far.”

The United States has said it would use its veto power in the United Nations’ Security Council to block the possible sales of the fighter jets to Iran.

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by Dominic Evans)