Cyprus-Forum.com

[Robin Hood]

Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, is proposing a deal whereby in return for avoiding a military strike, Syria will place all of its chemical weapons under the control of the international community.
http://rt.com/news/lavrov-syria-chemica ... dover-615/

Common sense at last?

[kurupetos]

In case some of you fools missed this...

Syrian rebels used Sarin nerve gas, not Assad’s regime: UN official

Testimony from victims strongly suggests it was the rebels, not the Syrian government, that used Sarin nerve gas during a recent incident in the revolution-wracked nation, a senior U.N. diplomat said Monday.

Carla del Ponte, a member of the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, told Swiss TV there were “strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof,” that rebels seeking to oust Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad had used the nerve agent.


Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... z2eWcfqJtq

[yialousa1971]

In case some of you fools missed this...

Syrian rebels used Sarin nerve gas, not Assad’s regime: UN official

Testimony from victims strongly suggests it was the rebels, not the Syrian government, that used Sarin nerve gas during a recent incident in the revolution-wracked nation, a senior U.N. diplomat said Monday.

Carla del Ponte, a member of the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, told Swiss TV there were “strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof,” that rebels seeking to oust Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad had used the nerve agent.


Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... z2eWcfqJtq

Paphitis is one of these fools, I wonder if he is going to explain to the forum why he supported these lies.

[yialousa1971]

RT sources: Syrian rebels plan chem attack on Israel from Assad-controlled territories

Published time: September 09, 2013 15:59
Edited time: September 09, 2013 19:33
source: http://rt.com/news/syria-rebels-chemica ... srael-618/



AFP Photo / Ricardo Garcia Vilanovoa

A chemical attack may be launched on Israel by Syrian rebels from government-controlled territories as a "major provocation," multiple sources told RT.
The report comes as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov proposed that Syria puts its chemical weapons arsenal under international control for subsequent destruction in order to prevent a possible military strike against the war-torn country.

Moscow also urged Syrian authorities to join the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The offer has already been passed over to Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem, who met Lavrov in Moscow for talks on Monday.

“We don’t know if Syria will accept the offer, but if imposing international control over chemical weapons stored in the country can help to avoid military strikes, we are immediately going to start working with Damascus,” Lavrov said.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry has welcomed Moscow's initiative, “based on the Syrian’s government care about the lives of our people and security of our country,” Muallem said later on Monday.

Meanwhile, US National Security Adviser Susan Rice made a statement saying that Damascus' alleged "use of chemical weapons against its own people" posed a threat to US national security. “The use of chemical weapons also directly threatens our closest ally in the region, Israel,” she said, speaking at the New America Foundation in Washington.


The White House ✔ @WhiteHouse
"The use of chemical weapons also directly threatens our closest ally in the region, Israel." —@AmbassadorRice on #Syria

The statement was made shortly after RT published a report about the possibility of a chemical provocation.

A few hours earlier, US Secretary of State John Kerry said that to avoid a military operation, Syrian President Bashar Assad has a week to surrender control of “every single bit” of his stock of chemical weapons to the international community. “But he isn't about to do it and it can't be done,” he added, speaking at a media conference in London as he wrapped up his European tour in a move to garner support for the Obama-proposed “limited” strike against Syria.

The US Administration has blamed the Syrian government for the alleged chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs on August 21. Washington has maintained it has the intelligence to prove it, but has so far refused to make public a single piece of concrete evidence that would link the Assad regime to the deadly incident.

On Sunday, the Senate Select Intelligence Committee released a series of 13 videos showing what is purported to be proof of chemical weapons use in Syria. The disturbing images of the victims of the alleged attack were earlier shown during a closed-door briefing to a group of senators, as Obama is trying to get authorization from Congress for the military strike on Syria. The administration told senators that the authenticity of the videos was verified by the intelligence community, reported CNN, which first aired the graphic material.

The videos depict scenes of convulsing children, men vomiting and struggling to breathe, and also what appeared to be dozens of dead bodies wrapped up in white sheets, lying side by side. But the footage still does not provide an answer to the question of who was behind the attack. The Syrian government and the opposition forces point the finger of blame at each other.

It also remains unclear as to why exactly President Assad would order a chemical attack at a time when a group of UN experts were carrying out an investigation in the country.

There is proof the footage of the alleged chemical attack in Syria was fabricated, Mother Agnes Mariam el-Salib, mother superior of the St. James Monastery in Qara, Syria, told RT. She added that she plans to submit her findings to the UN.

[yialousa1971]

Intl experts have strong proof images of chemical victims fabricated – Moscow

Published time: September 10, 2013 08:09
Edited time: September 10, 2013 10:00
source: http://rt.com/news/experts-un-syria-chemical-649/

Syrian opposition's Shaam News Network shows people inspecting bodies of children and adults laying on the ground
as Syrian rebels claim they were killed in a toxic gas attack by pro-government forces in eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts
of Damascus on August 21, 2013.(AFP Photo / Shaam News Network)

Footage and photos of the alleged chemical attack in Syria, which the US cites as the reason for a planned military intervention, had been fabricated in advance, speakers told a UN human rights conference in Geneva.

Members of the conference were presented accounts of international experts, Syrian public figures and Russian news reporters covering the Syrian conflict, which back Russia’s opposition to the US plans, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The speakers argued that the suspected sarin gas attack near Damascus on August 21 was likely a provocation of the rebel forces and that a military action against the President Bashar Assad government will likely result in civilian casualties and a humanitarian catastrophe affecting the entire region.

The possible attack by US military without a UN Security Council mandate would violate international law and should be prevented by the United Nations, some of the speakers said.

Evidence for the Russian case, including numerous eyewitness reports and results of investigations of the chemical weapon incident by activists, was handed over to a UN commission of experts probing the Syrian crisis, the ministry said.

The Obama administration voiced an intention to use military force in Syria after reports of mass deaths in Eastern Houla, a neighborhood of Damascus, which killed more than 1,400 people according to US estimates. Washington says the deaths was due to a chemical weapons attack of the Syrian army on rebel forces and says it plans to use force to prevent such incidents in the future.



A view shows bodies of people activists say were killed by nerve gas in Damascus' suburbs of Zamalka
August 21, 2013.(Reuters / Hadi Almonajed)

Russia is convinced that the chemical incident was a provocation by rebel forces, which staged a false flag attack to drag the US into the conflict and capitalize on the damage that the Syrian army is likely to sustain in the American intervention.

An increasing number of reports is backing Russia’s position, with local witnesses, US and British former intelligence professionals and Europeans recently released from rebel captivity all speaking for a provocation scenario.

In the latest development this week a possible way to de-escalate the tension was voiced, which would involve the Assad government handing over control of his chemical arsenal to the international community. The plan was backed by Russia, China and Syria's main ally Iran, while Syria said it will review it.

Mixed signals over the plan came from the US. The US State Department initially said Secretary of State John Kerry, who initially voiced a possible disarmament, saw it as a rhetorical move and didn’t expect Bashar Assad to actually disarm. But later President Obama said such a move from Damascus would make him put the military action plan on pause.

Meanwhile RT learned that Syrian rebels might be planning a chemical weapons attack in Israel. The possible attack would be carried out from the territory supposedly controlled by the Syrian government and would trigger another round of escalation, leaving little hope of defusing the tension.

[yialousa1971]

European Captives: Rebels behind Syria Chemical Attack

Tue Sep 10, 2013 6:3
source: http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.as ... 0619001350


TEHRAN (FNA)- Belgian teacher Pierre Piccinin and Italian journalist Domenico Quiric, both of whom were abducted and held hostage for several months in Syria, said they overheard in an exchange between their captors that foreign-backed militants were behind the recent chemical attack.

In a number of interviews to European news outlets, the former hostages said they overheard an English-language Skype conversation between their captors and other men which suggested it was rebel forces – not the government - that used chemical weapons on Syria’s civilian population in an August 21 attack near Damascus.

“It is a moral duty to say this. The government of Bashar al-Assad did not use sarin gas or other types of gas in the outskirts of Damascus,” Piccinin said during an interview with Belgium's RTL radio station.

Piccinin stressed that while being held captive, he and fellow prisoner Quirico were secluded from the outside world and had no idea that chemical weapons were deployed. But the conversation which both men overheard suggested that the use of the weapons was a strategic move by the opposition, aimed at getting the West to intervene, Al-Alam reported.

"In this conversation, they said that the gas attack on two neighborhoods of Damascus was launched by the rebels as a provocation to lead the West to intervene militarily,” Quirico told Italy’s La Stampa. "We were unaware of everything that was going on during our detention in Syria, and therefore also with the gas attack in Damascus."

While stating that the rebels most likely exaggerated the accident’s death toll, the Italian journalist stressed that he could not vouch whether “the conversation was based on real facts." However, he said that one of the three people in the alleged conversation identified himself as a Free Syrian Army general, La Stampa reported.

Based on what both men have learned, Peccinin told RTL that it would be “insane and suicidal for the West to support these people.”

“It pains me to say it because I've been a fierce supporter of the Free Syrian Army in its rightful fight for democracy since 2012," Piccinin added.

“I am extremely surprised that the United States could think about intervening, knowing very well how the Syrian revolution has become international jihadism – in other words Al-Qaeda," Quirico said, as quoted by Italy’s Quotidiano Nazionale.

The 62-year-old La Stampa journalist believes that radical militant groups operating in Syria to topple Assad “want to create a caliphate and extend it to the entire Middle-East and North Africa.”

In a number of news appearances, both Quirico and Piccinin shared stories of how they were subjected to two mock executions, beaten, and starved during their five-month captivity.

"These have been very tough months. We were beaten on a daily basis, we suffered two mock executions," Quirico told reporters upon his arrival in Rome, AFP reported.

"There was sometimes real violence...humiliation, bullying, mock executions...Domenico faced two mock executions, with a revolver," Piccinin told RTL.

Both men were kidnapped in Syria last April by a group of armed men in pickup trucks who were believed to be from the so-called Free Syrian Army.

According to Piccinin, the captors soon transferred them over to the Abu Ammar brigade, a rebel group "more bandit than Islamist."

"We were moved around a lot...it was not always the same group that held us, there were very violent groups, very anti-West and some anti-Christian," Piccinin said.

Both men tried to escape twice but their attempts were unsuccessful, prompting the rebel group to punish them for their actions.

The Italian government announced on Sunday that both men had been freed after Rome intensified negotiations with the rebels for the release of the prisoners ahead of an anticipated US strike on Syria.

Another 13 journalists are still believed to be missing in Syria, according to Reporters Without Borders.

[repulsewarrior]

...and what does this prove?

walking amongst us are Individuals whose acts are heinous to the rest of us...

...picking "sides", only leads to "their" Liberty hiding themselves, as Persons.

if anything, the U.S. should not be hiding inconvenient truths, as it appears to, but the corruption has only grown; there exist a military-industrial complex, its equal are those who fear Freedom, we have learned nothing if we deny that hatred is a very good thing when applied against real enemies, rather than each other.

Lest we Forget.

[kurupetos]

...and what does this prove?

walking amongst us are Individuals whose acts are heinous to the rest of us...

...picking "sides", only leads to "their" Liberty hiding themselves, as Persons.

if anything, the U.S. should not be hiding inconvenient truths, as it appears to, but the corruption has only grown; there exist a military-industrial complex, its equal are those who fear Freedom, we have learned nothing if we deny that hatred is a very good thing when applied against real enemies, rather than each other.

Lest we Forget.

I agree RW. We don't need to take any sides. Assad is a dictator, but countries like America are in no position to talk about democracy and human rights.

Support of these filthy muslim fundamentalist rebels is tantamount to support to terrorism. Assad is by far a lesser evil than them. Since Islamic sharia and democracy are two completely opposites, I don't see how the West can reason support to these fundamentalists.

[Robin Hood]

A Plea for Caution From Russia ............... What Putin Has to Say to the Americans About Syria

By Vladimir V. Putin

It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America’s long-term interest? I doubt it. Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under the slogan “you’re either with us or against us.”

But force has proved ineffective and pointless. Afghanistan is reeling, and no one can say what will happen after international forces withdraw. Libya is divided into tribes and clans. In Iraq the civil war continues, with dozens killed each day. In the United States, many draw an analogy between Iraq and Syria, and ask why their government would want to repeat recent mistakes.

My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

© 2013 The New York Times Company

Full English translation of Pres. Putin's letter to the American people:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36203.htm

Putin is coming over as a far better diplomat than Obama.

[miltiades]

...and what does this prove?

walking amongst us are Individuals whose acts are heinous to the rest of us...

...picking "sides", only leads to "their" Liberty hiding themselves, as Persons.

if anything, the U.S. should not be hiding inconvenient truths, as it appears to, but the corruption has only grown; there exist a military-industrial complex, its equal are those who fear Freedom, we have learned nothing if we deny that hatred is a very good thing when applied against real enemies, rather than each other.

Lest we Forget.

I agree RW. We don't need to take any sides. Assad is a dictator, but countries like America are in no position to talk about democracy and human rights.

Support of these filthy muslim fundamentalist rebels is tantamount to support to terrorism. Assad is by far a lesser evil than them. Since Islamic sharia and democracy are two completely opposites, I don't see how the West can reason support to these fundamentalists.

I agree entirely that Assad as a dictator is far better equipped to deal with his own people than anyone else. To support lunatics who want to establish a theocratic dictatorship is tantamount to supporting Islamic madness . People who have not one iota for respect of life, including their own, must not be supported by the West.

The ME will never "wake up" for as long as reality is their God and not logical matters. These same people. as the so called rebels, have one aim in life. Kill and get killed whilst praising their false God.
I HOPE America and the rest of the western world do not intervene in a futile battle. The end result will not be democracy but another form of Taliban dictatorship,

As for Cyprus, we have nothing to gain by having an Islamic fanatical regime so close by.
To hell with the "rebels" to hell with fanatical theocrats.