WAR: Russia Denies Secret Talks With Syria Over Missile System, page 1

posted on Jan, 15 2005 @ 03:11 AM

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The Russian Foreign Minister denied today that his country was in talks with Syria over a deal that would provide a state of the art surface to air missile system. Sergey Lavrov indicated that while there was nothing in the way of weapons purchases going on, they were discussing a state visit by the Syrian president to Russia.

story.news.yahoo.com
MOSCOW - Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov denied Friday that Russia was holding secret talks with Syria over a deal to provide the Middle Eastern country with high-precision missile systems.

"We don't have any secret topics that we discuss with Syria," he said. "We adhere to all our international obligations and will not allow them to be breached."

He said that talks were under way on Syrian President Bashar Assad's visit to Russia later this month.

The ITAR-Tass news agency later quoted Assad as saying Syrian acquistion of Russian missiles "will not be on the agenda of the Moscow negotiations between the two presidents."

Israeli officials alleged that Russia and Syria had signed a deal for the sale of advanced Igla SA-18 missiles a few days ago, and Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Thursday that his country had asked Russia to call off the sale, claiming the weapons would disrupt regional stability.

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Both the U.S. and Israel have warned Russia and Syria not to go through with the purchase. It is unclear however if there is even discussion between the two nations regarding the sale of such a system. No doubt the purchase of such a state of the art SAM system would give Israeli Air Force planners some sleepless nights.

Countermeasures

posted on Jan, 15 2005 @ 04:25 AM

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man portable sams and anti-tank rockets are the wave of the future for urban combat. The added danger comes from the the fact that unlike the RPG-7 these newer rockets have longer range and better guidance/seekers.

FredT

posted on Jan, 15 2005 @ 04:45 AM

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However, Isreal much like the U.S. is modeled around a combined arms military and air power plays a huge role in that. If you could negate the IAF's sign. advantage over the region, thier army would have a much arder time just defending Isreal much less being an offensive force.