Although Russia has been the chief supplier for the Assad regime for years and years, and has vetoed U.N. Security resolutions condemning the Assad regime time and again, that country says now that they never supported the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
In Moscow, Russia’s foreign miniister Sergei Lavrov said today to reporters, “We were never enchanted with this regime. And we never supported it,” he said. “And all of our actions, aimed at helping to fulfill the Geneva agreement to form the transitional body, only confirm that we want the situation to stabilize, and the creation of the conditions that Syrians can themselves decide their fate – of their own people, their own state, their own leadership.”
On Sunday, Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that the Syrian President should have reached out to his opponents much sooner to institute democratic reforms. Now the Russian Prime Minister believes that it may be too late, and that his chances of remaining in power diminish more and more each day.
Concerns in Israel that the Syrian regime is coming to an end has prompted the government there to deploy their Iron Dome defense system in the main northern city of Haifa on Sunday. Israel fears that as Syria’s government crumbles, that country will lose control of what is believed a massive stockpile of chemical weapons. Israel has not ruled out a strike against its northern neighbor in an attempt to prevent that from occurring.
At a cabinet meeting on Sunday,Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netamyahu said, “We must look around us, at what is happening in Iran and its proxies and at what is happening in other areas, with the deadly weapons in Syria, which is increasingly coming apart.”
The former head of the Shin Bet Intelligence Agancy in Israel and current Lawmaker, Yisrael Hasson, said, his country is concerned over Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles. He told listeners of that country’s Army radio, “Syria has a massive amount of chemical weapons, and if they fall into hands even more extreme than Syria like Hezbollah or global jihad groups it would completely transform the map of threats,”
Members of the Syrian opposition met in Paris today, where a call went out from French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, for western leaders to give the members of the opposition the resources to defend themselves against the Assad regime. There is a fear that without financial and material support for the opposition, Islamic extremists may in fact take over the country as the regime falls. “Facing the collapse of a state and society, it is Islamist groups that risk gaining ground if we do not act as we should,” he said. “We cannot let a revolution that started as a peaceful and democratic protest degenerate into a conflict of militias.”
Syrian state media announced on Sunday that the Syrian Judicial Council has suspended any legal action against exiled opposition leaders, saying that they can come back to Syria without the fear of prosecution so that they can take part in a national dialogue with Syria’s government.
Syrian opposition say that Assad must step down and remove himself from power before any peace talks can take place.