MOSCOW, 26 January 2005 — Russia and Syria pledged to restore Soviet-era ties yesterday, striking an accord on Damascus’ debts to Moscow and future military cooperation despite Israel’s apparent success in torpedoing Russian weapons sales to its archenemy.
Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose visit to Moscow provoked a row between Israel and Russia over reported plans to sell advanced Russian missiles to Syria, signed a declaration with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on defense ties.
In the statement, inked after Kremlin talks, Moscow and Damascus agreed to “pursue traditional cooperation in the military-technical sphere in keeping with their mutual interests and international obligations,” Itar-Tass reported.
Earlier, the Syrian president said it had the right to acquire weapons to protect itself against Israeli air attack.
“These are defensive weapons, air defense, to prevent aircraft from entering our airspace,” Bashar said, asked to comment on the reported contract for portable Igla anti-aircraft missiles, now seen in doubt because of Israeli and US pressure.
“If Israel is against us acquiring them, it’s as if it was saying ‘We want to attack Syria but we don’t want them to protect themselves,’” he told students at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO).
President Putin vowed to reinvigorate lapsed ties between Moscow and Damascus, a former Soviet client state which has traditionally been a major purchaser of Russian weapons.
“Syria is a country with which the Soviet Union and today’s Russia have always had particularly warm relations,” Putin told Bashar as the two men met in the gilded splendor of the Kremlin.
The Russian president regretted that there had been “a long pause” since the last visit of a Syrian leader to Moscow but expressed the hope that they could revive “a tradition of friendship and cooperation that is decades-old.”
In a breakthrough, the two sides reached a deal on restructuring the estimated $13 billion of Syria’s debts mainly incurred from arms purchases during the Soviet era.
Analysts say that Russia is unlikely to recover more than 10 percent in cash, with some other portion of the debt likely to be repaid in goods and a major part forgiven.
The Syrian leader arrived in Moscow Monday on a four-day state visit overshadowed by furious Israeli protests over the reported contracts for Russian missiles that would erode the Jewish state’s military edge over its archfoe Damascus.
Despite official denials, Russian commentators yesterday said that the sale of Igla missiles and Iskanker-E next-generation missiles capable of striking Israel had been in the pipeline but had been shelved after Israeli and US protests.
Russia, one of the four international sponsors of the Middle East peace process, is hoping to use renewed influence with Syria to boost its role in the region while Damascus wants Russian help in securing the return of the Golan Heights from Israel captured in the 1967 war, analysts said.
