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| Syria crisis: Russia denies Hillary Clinton claim over helicopters | Syria crisis: Russia denies Hillary Clinton claim over helicopters |
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| Russia's foreign minister has rejected the US claim that Moscow is sending attack helicopters to Syria. | Russia's foreign minister has rejected the US claim that Moscow is sending attack helicopters to Syria. |
| Russian news agencies reported that foreign minister Sergei Lavrov denied a claim by US secretary of state Hillary Clinton that "there are attack helicopters on the way from Russia to Syria" Lavrov said during a visit to Iran that Russia is completing earlier weapons contracts with Syria exclusively for air defence systems. | Russian news agencies reported that foreign minister Sergei Lavrov denied a claim by US secretary of state Hillary Clinton that "there are attack helicopters on the way from Russia to Syria" Lavrov said during a visit to Iran that Russia is completing earlier weapons contracts with Syria exclusively for air defence systems. |
| Clinton said Tuesday that the shipment "will escalate the conflict quite dramatically". | Clinton said Tuesday that the shipment "will escalate the conflict quite dramatically". |
| Lavrov says that Russia isn't providing Syria with weapons that can be used against peaceful demonstrators. | Lavrov says that Russia isn't providing Syria with weapons that can be used against peaceful demonstrators. |
| Russia, along with China, has shielded Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's regime from international sanctions over its violent crackdown on protesters in which more than 13,000 people have died, according to opposition groups. | Russia, along with China, has shielded Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's regime from international sanctions over its violent crackdown on protesters in which more than 13,000 people have died, according to opposition groups. |
| Moscow has been a longstanding supplier of weapons to the Assad regime and Syria hosts Russia's only naval base in the Mediterranean. | |
| Clinton, speaking to a forum in Washington on Tuesday, also said that intelligence also indicated that the Assad regime may be about to turn its forces against Syria's largest city, Aleppo, close to the northwestern border with Turkey. | |
| "There seems to be a massing of Syrian forces around Aleppo which we've got information about over the last 24 or 48 hours. That could very well be a red line for the Turks in terms of their strategic or national interests," she said. | |
| State television in Syria on Wednesday said government forces have retaken control of the Haffa region near the Mediterranean coast following eight days of fierce shelling and clashes. | |
| Hundreds of rebel fighters were believed to have been holed up there and pulled out overnight after intense fighting. The rebel fighters fled the villages of Zanqufa, Dafil and Bakkas under the cover of night, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, citing a network of activists on the ground. | |
| State television said regime forces had "cleansed" Haffa from "armed terrorist groups" and the foreign ministry urged UN observers to head there. Syrian authorities often refer to rebels fighting to oust Assad as terrorists. | |
| The mountainous Haffa region is one of several areas where government forces are battling rebels for control in escalating violence. Recovering it is particularly important to the regime because the town is about 20 miles from President Bashar Assad's hometown of Kardaha in Latakia province. | |
| Latakia is the heartland of the Alawite minority to which Assad and the ruling elite belong, although there is a mix of religious groups there. | |
| It was not clear whether UN observers in Syria would be able to reach Haffa. On Tuesday, an angry crowd hurled rocks and sticks at the observers' vehicles as they approached the area, forcing them to turn back. The observers were not hurt. Sausan Ghosheh, a spokeswoman for the observers, said they have been trying to reach Haffa since 7 June. | |
| France on Wednesday said Syria is already in a civil war, echoing a similar statement by UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous on Tuesday. | |
| The new French foreign minister Laurent Fabius told a news conference in Paris: "If you can't call it a civil war, then there are no words to describe it." | |
| He added that to stop "this civil war from worsening," Assad must leave power and Syrian opposition groups must start a new government. He said he will be in personal contact with the opposition inside Syria. | |
| Earlier, Syria's foreign ministry expressed "astonishment" over Ladsous' statement, saying it lacked objectivity, was "far from reality" and inaccurate. "Syria is not witnessing a civil war but rather an armed conflict to uproot terrorism and confront killings, kidnappings, bombings ... and other brutal acts by armed terrorist groups," the ministry said. |