WORLD_ Has Vladimir Putin promised David Cameron he won't sell air defences to Syria?

Has Vladimir Putin promised David Cameron he won't sell air defences to Syria?

By David Blair - World Last updated: May 10th, 2013

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What can we make of David Cameron’s meeting with Vladimir Putin today? One substantive result is that Britain will restore intelligence cooperation with Russia on the specific issue of securing the Winter Olympics in Sochi next year. Make no mistake: that is a British concession.

Back in 2007, David Miliband, then Foreign Secretary, stopped all intelligence cooperation with Russia in the aftermath of the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in London. Russia gained much more from intelligence-sharing than the British ever did. Accordingly, the Russians have wanted that link to be restored ever since. Putin, an old spymaster, is understood to be particularly keen to have a channel to British intelligence. So the fact that Cameron has partially reopened the line amounts to a win for Putin, limited by the fact that security for the Winter Olympics will be the only subject for cooperation.

The question is what has Russia given in return? The signals are ambiguous, but it appears that the quid pro quo might be a Russian undertaking not to sell the S300 air defence system to Syria. If so, that would be a significant move. Israel believes that Syria has already begun paying Russia for the S300. If the Kremlin now chooses to pocket the money and keep the weapons, who will ever have confidence in a Russian arms contract again?

There is a precedent for this. Back in 2010, Russia decided not to deliver the S300 to Iran – despite having taken $900 million of Tehran’s money.

If it turns out that Russia has – again – pocketed the cash without delivering the weapons, then its status as arms merchant of choice for the world’s isolated regimes might be at risk. Apart from oil and gas, weapons are just about the only commodity that Russia is capable of exporting. Entire cities depend on the arms industry. So a decision not to sell the S300, perhaps having taken some of the money, would be a significant move, perhaps with wider implications for Russia’s relationship with Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

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Tags: Bashar al-Assad, David Cameron, Russia, Syria, Vladimir Putin
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