Putin tells Israel sale of anti-aircraft missiles to Syria will go ahead

Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday made clear his determination to go ahead with the sale of anti-aircraft missiles to Syria despite strong pressure from Israeli leaders to revoke it.

Neither Russia nor Israel made any effort to disguise the open disagreement on this and other issues in talks which both Mr Putin and the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, nevertheless went out of their way to depict as cementing improved relations between the two countries.

In civilities that went beyond the routinely diplomatic, Mr Sharon, whose parents were born in Russia, yesterday greeted Mr Putin in Russian and told him "he should feel among brothers" on his visit to Israel.

Mr Putin reflected that he was glad to be visiting at the time of the Passover and the Orthodox Christian Easter and declared: "I would like to wish the Jewish People well with all my heart; I wish joy for the entire Jewish family."

But on arms for Syria, on the best way of securing peace in the Middle East, and on Russia's help for Iran's nuclear programme - help which the Russian President insisted was confined to peaceful uses - the talks did little to remove the sharp differences which remain between the two governments.

Mr Putin strongly defended his decision to sell SA-18 missiles to Syria and disclosed in talks with the Israeli President Katsav for the first time that he had vetoed a contract also to sell longer range -185 mile-Iskander missiles to Damascus on the grounds that Israel would not be able to intercept them.

By contrast, the anti-aircraft missiles being sold "cannot reach Israeli territory," he said, adding: "To come within their range, you have to attack Syria. Do you want to do that?"

Responding to Israeli complaints that the weapons could fall into the hands of Hizbollah, Mr Putin said the missiles could not be shoulder-fired and would not work if uncoupled from the jeeps on which they were mounted.

Mr Putin did not mention yesterday that Israeli warplanes did indeed bomb alleged militant training bases outside Damascus on Oct. 5, 2003 and have since "buzzed" one of Syrian President Bashar Assad's palaces.

Instead the Russian President compared Russia's $500m sales of weapons to the Middle East with what he said was a total of about $6.8bn in arms sales by the US to the region.

At his news conference yesterday Mr Putin did not publicly repeat his call-made the previous day in Cairo-for a Middle East summit in Moscow, which has received short shrift from Israel and the US, along with a distinctly tepid response from the European foreign Affairs Commissioner, Javier Solana.

Israel has also made clear its opposition to current Russian proposals to provide Armoured Personnel Carriers and other equipment to Palestinian security forces.

But the Russian President, who will hold talks today with the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas went out of way to warn both sides not to take actions which would prejudice final status talks.

This appeared to be a way of emphasising what is also the US official position-namely that Israel should not be pre-empting a final peace deal by settlement expansion, including steps that could prejudice the chances of East Jerusalem being a future Palestinian capital.

On Iran, Mr Putin was somewhat more emollient in his language, saying he accepted that current steps to prevent Iran developing nuclear weapons were "not enough" and that Iran had to be persuaded to accept nuclear weapons inspections.

But Ehud Olmert, Israel's Deputy Prime Minister, insisted yesterday that Russia was itself selling Iran components which could be used for non-conventional weapons.

Although Mr Sharon has said that Israel does not intend any attack on Iran, the United States said this week it wanted to authorise the sale of as many as 100 large bunker-buster bombs to Israel, which has been widely seen as a warning to Iran about its nuclear ambitions.

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