Israel warns Russia against giving Syria missiles

Israel's defense chief aforesaid Tuesday a Russian decide to offer refined anti-aircraft missiles to Syria was a "threat" and signaled that Israel is ready to use force to prevent the delivery.

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon issued his warning shortly when a prime Russian official aforesaid his government reserves the proper to produce Syria with progressive S-300 defensive measure missiles.

Israel has been lobbying national capital to halt the sale, fearing the missiles would upset the balance of power within the region and will slip into the hands of hostile teams, together with the Lebanese militia Islamic Jihad, an in depth ally of the Syrian regime.

“As way as we tend to square measure involved, that's a threat,” Yaalon told reporters once asked regarding the S300s.

“At this stage I can’t say there's associate degree step-up. The shipments haven't been sent on their method nevertheless. And that i hope that they'll not be sent,” he said. However “if God forbid they are doing reach Syria, we'll apprehend what to try and do.”

The delivery of the Russian missiles to Syria may limit the Israeli air force's ability to act. It’s not clear whether or not Israeli warplanes entered Syrian airspace in these attacks.

Time Is Running Out in Syria: World Leaders

A world conference accepted a U.N.-brokered peace plan that calls for the creation of a transitional government in Syria, but at Russia's insistence the compromise agreement left the door open to Syria's president being part of it.

representatives of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — along with Turkey, Kuwait, and Qatar, reached an agreement during a conference in Geneva that a transitional government should be set up in Syria, but the question of whether President Bashar al-Assad will step down was left undecided.

The U.S. backed away from insisting that the plan should explicitly call for President Bashar Assad to have no role in a new Syrian government, hoping the concession would encourage Russia to put greater pressure on its longtime ally to end the violent crackdown that the opposition says has claimed more than 14,000 lives.

The crisis talks were called by the Arab League and UN special envoy Kofi Annan, who told the press in his concluding remarks: “It is for the people to come to a political agreement but time is running out.

Syrian opposition figures immediately rejected any notion of sharing in a transition with Assad, though the agreement also requires security force chiefs and services to have the confidence of the people. Assad's government had no immediate reaction, but he has repeatedly said his government has a responsibility to eliminate terrorists and will not accept any non-Syrian model of governance.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insisted on Saturday that Assad would still have to go, saying it is now incumbent on Russia and China to show Assad the writing on the wall" and help force his departure.

President Bashar Assad “will still have to go, he will never pass the mutual consent test given the blood on his hands.

“It is now incumbent on Russia and China to show Assad the writing on the wall,” Clinton said.

Kofi Annan was appointed the special envoy in February, and in March he submitted a six-point peace plan that he said the Assad regime accepted. It led to the April 12 cease-fire agreement that failed to hold.

The U.N. plan calls for establishing a transitional government of national unity, with full executive powers, that could include members of Assad's government and the opposition and other groups. It would oversee the drafting of a new constitution and elections.

Annan said following the Geneva talks that "it is for the people of Syria to come to a political agreement.

The way things have been going thus far — we are not helping anyone,” Annan said, according to The Associated Press. “Let us break this trend and start being of some use.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said following the agreement that no member of the Syrian opposition will accept to be part of a transitional government while Assad is still in power.

"Assad's staying in power will mean the continuation of the bloodshed in Syria," he said.

Syria-U.N. agree on terms of monitoring mission

Syria and the United Nations signed an agreement on Thursday on terms for hundreds of observers to monitor a ceasefire, but diplomatic wrangling still lies ahead to persuade the West the mission will have the clout needed to ensure peace.

An advance party of half a dozen U.N. observers are already in Syria observing a week-old truce, but the question of whether that can be expanded to a full-blown monitoring mission is up in the air, especially as a week-old ceasefire has yet to halt violence in the worst-hit parts of the country.

The 15-member U.N. Security Council - divided between Western countries that want to topple Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and Russia and China which support him - must agree the proposal to send a larger observer force. CONTINUE - - - - - - -

Iran threatens to stop Gulf oil if sanctions widened

TEHRAN: Iran has threatened to stop the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz if foreign sanctions were imposed on its crude exports over its nuclear ambitions, a move that could trigger military conflict with economies dependent on Gulf oil.

Sanctions will not succeed in stopping Iran's nuclear progress, its president said major powers said they had "serious and constructive" talks about new UN punitive measures.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking at an annual military parade to commemorate the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, also reiterated a call on US and other foreign forces to leave neighbouring Iraq, the official IRNA news agency said.

"Those who think, that by using such decayed tools as psychological warfare and economic sanctions, they can stop the Iranian nation's progress are making a mistake," he said.

As he spoke, troops, tanks, and other military hardware passed by the podium in the parade area near the tomb of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic.

During the event, Iran showed off missiles including the Shahab-3, which it says can hit targets 2,000 km (1,250 miles) away, putting Israel or US bases in the Gulf within range.

Iran, which says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes, has threatened to hit back at US interests in the Middle East if attacked.

Major Powers met in Washington on Friday for talks about new UN Security Council sanctions aimed at trying to force Iran to halt its sensitive atom work. The Council has imposed two rounds of limited sanctions on Tehran since December.

The officials of the five permanent Security Council members and Germany said they will keep pursuing a "dual track" approach to Iran -- trying to persuade it to abandon such atomic work via negotiations while considering new sanctions.

"The nations throughout the region do not need the presence of the foreigners," he said
Iran threatens to stop Gulf oil if sanctions widened

Western tensions with Iran have increased since a November 8 report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog saying Tehran appears to have worked on designing an atomic bomb and may still be pursuing research to that end. Iran strongly denies this and says it is developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Many diplomats and analysts believe only sanctions targeting Iran's lifeblood oil sector might be painful enough to make it change course, but Russia and China - big trade partners of Tehran - have blocked such a move at the United Nations.

Iran's warning on Tuesday came three weeks after EU foreign ministers decided to tighten sanctions over the U.N. watchdog report and laid out plans for a possible embargo of oil from the world's No. 5 crude exporter.

"If they (the West) impose sanctions on Iran's oil exports, then even one drop of oil cannot flow from the Strait of Hormuz," the official Iranian news agency IRNA quoted Iran's First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi as saying.

- Iran threatens to block Strait of Hormuz oil lane to West
- Saudis, other Gulf states ready to replace Iranian exports
- Closure of Strait of Hormuz could be spark for war
- Faces more sanctions after UN finds signs of atom bomb bid
- EU has mooted possible embargo on Iranian oil exports

"If they (the West) impose sanctions on Iran's oil exports, then even one drop of oil cannot flow from the Strait of Hormuz," the official Iranian news agency IRNA quoted Iran's First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi as saying.

The U.S. State Department said it saw "an element of bluster" in the threat but underscored that the United States would support the free flow of oil.

"First, the U.S. will probably not allow Iran to close the Strait. That's a major economic thoroughfare and not just for oil. You shut that Strait and we are talking a major hit on many Middle East economies," said Carl Larry, president of Oil Outlooks in New York.

"Second, there is no way that the Saudis (alone) have enough oil or quality of oil to replace Iranian crude. Figure Saudi spare capacity is 2 to 4 million at best. Of that spare, about 1-2 million is real oil that is comparable out of Iran. Lose Iran, lose 3.5 million barrels per day of imports. No way."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed hitting Iran with an oil embargo and won support from Britain, but resistance to the idea persists within and outside the European Union.

An import ban might raise global oil prices during hard economic times and debt-strapped Greece has been relying on attractively financed Iranian oil.

Iran's seaborne trade is already suffering from existing trade sanctions, with shipping companies scaling down or pulling out as the Islamic Republic faces more hurdles in transporting its oil.