WarSclerotic

Russia ‘committed’ to delivering S-300 missiles to Damascus – Alarabiya.net English | Front Page.

In an attempt to bolster Syria’s war-battered economy, Russia is considering extending a loan to Damascus and is still committed to delivering S-300 missiles in defiance of the West, a top Syrian official said Monday.

Visiting Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil said after meeting Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow that the issue of a Russian credit was discussed at the talks and Damascus hoped for an agreement by the end of the year.

“We discussed it, although it is still early to talk of concrete figures,” Jamil said, quoted by Russian news agencies. “We hope that the question will be solved by the end of the year, experts are now discussing it.”

The Syrian official added that all arms agreements with Russia, including Moscow’s controversial contract to deliver S-300 missile systems to Damascus, were still in place.

“All agreements between Russia and Syria in the area of arms deliveries are in place,” the Syrian deputy prime minister said.

“Relations between Syria and Russia are strengthening for the good of peace in the region,” he added.

Lavrov said the Syrian government and opposition must work together to expel all “terrorists and extremists from Syria.”

“We are continuing to meet with the government and all opposition groups to convince them all to accept the initiative to convene the international conference as soon as possible,” Lavrov said at the start of talks with Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil.

“Unfortunately, most of the opposition, in contrast to the government, is not showing this readiness,” he added, according to AFP.

Jamil is meeting Lavrov, in an effort to seek ways of ending the 28-month Syrian conflict after clashes with rebels left dozens dead.

The move comes as Russia and the United States seek to convene an international conference on Syria but amid differences over its parameters.

The Syrian government has expressed its willingness to participate in such a meeting as it seeks to subdue the rebels.

Meanwhile, deadly violence raged across Syria on Sunday as regime shelling killed at least 18 civilians in the northwest while 28 rebels died in Damascus battling government forces, a monitoring group said.

EU puts Hezbollah on terror list | The Times of Israel.

( “This comes one week after the EU declared the sky to be blue.  Agreement has yet to be reached on the issue of the world being round.” – JW )

Council of foreign ministers declares military wing of Lebanese Islamist group a terrorist organization

By Gavriel Fiske and AP July 22, 2013, 1:14 pm

Hezbollah fighters hold party flags during a parade in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon. (photo credit: AP/Hussein Malla/File)

The European Union declared Monday that the military wing of Lebanese political party Hezbollah was a terrorist organization, which could have far-reaching implications for European-Lebanese relations.

A council of EU foreign ministers reached the decision at their monthly meeting Monday. Putting the organization on the terrorist blacklist was decided by a unanimous vote from the EU’s 28 foreign ministers, a French diplomat said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Hezbollah was expected to issue a statement Monday afternoon. The Foreign Affairs Council of the European Union was expected to hold a press conference later in the day.

Ahead of the vote, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that “the great majority” of the EU member states supported the plan, and hoped for the necessary unanimity.

The EU has long avoided a vote to declare Hezbollah’s military wing a terrorist organization, despite US pressure, for fear that such a move would destabilize Lebanon and its neighbors.

“It is good that the EU has decided to call Hezbollah what it is: a terrorist organization,” Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans said after the decision.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni welcomed the EU decree. “Finally, after years of discussions and deliberations, [they] have failed, and rightly so, in their attempt to claim that they are a legitimate political party,” she said.

Now the world knows that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, added Livni, a former foreign minister. The “just and correct decision” shows that even if Hezbollah also functions as a political party, it can’t launder its terrorist activities behind that, she said.

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin praised the decision and told Israel Radio that the vote was the result of many years of work by the Foreign Ministry.

Observers said there had been a steady change of heart within the EU, particularly in Germany, which has in the past resisted calls to list the Islamist group.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said before the vote that evidence from last year’s attack in the Black Sea resort of Burgas in Bulgaria, which killed five Israeli tourists and one Bulgarian, should provide enough impetus for the move. Westerwelle said that “we have to answer this, and the answer is” blacklisting Hezbollah’s military wing.

Belgium’s Foreign Minister Didier Reynders, right, talks with Italy’s Foreign Minister Emma Bonino, during the EU foreign ministers meeting, at the European Council building in Brussels on Monday. (photo credit: AP/Yves Logghe)

The attack on EU territory plus a Cyprus criminal court decision in March finding a Hezbollah member guilty of helping to plan attacks on Israelis on the Mediterranean island has galvanized EU diplomacy in moving toward action.

“We should name names because time comes to tell the truth,” said Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Antanas Linkevicius, who chaired Monday’s meeting. “What was done by the military wing in the region and elsewhere I would say, there should be some reaction.”

In February, an official Bulgarian report said investigators had “well-grounded reasons” to suggest that two men suspected in the attack belonged to the militant wing of Hezbollah, and on Wednesday, Bulgaria’s prime minister said that new evidence has bolstered its case implicating Hezbollah in the deadly bombing, which targeted a group of Israeli tourists arriving at the Burgas airport.

Hezbollah has denied involvement in the Burgas attack.

On Thursday, Lebanon said that it would formally request that the EU not name Hezbollah a terrorist organization. A statement released by President Michel Suleiman’s office said Hezbollah is a “main component of Lebanese society.”

The Iranian-backed group plays a pivotal role in Lebanese politics, dominating the government since 2011, and has since sent its members to bolster Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces in their assault of rebel-held areas.

While some EU officials have said that a decision to blacklist Hezbollah’s military wing would be solely based on concerns over terrorism on European soil, several EU nations also have pointed to Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria as a reason for the move.

The blacklisting means imposing visa bans on individuals and asset freezes on organizations associated with the group. But the implementation will be complicated since officials will have to unravel the links between the different wings within Hezbollah’s organizational network and see who could be targeted for belonging to the military wing.

Hague said that blacklisting Hezbollah’s military wing would not “destabilize Lebanon or have serious adverse consequences.”

“It is important for us to show that we are united and strong in facing terrorism,” Hague said.