Putin refuses to shift pro-Assad stance

President Vladimir Putin signalled in an interview aired yesterday that Russia was not ready to shift its stance on Syria, and suggested Western nations were relying on groups such as al Qaeda to help drive President Bashar al-Assad from power.

Putin held out hope for an end to a dispute with Washington on missile defence if President Barack Obama were re-elected in November, telling Russia’s RT television he was “an honest person who really wants to change much for the better”.

Putin took aim at Obama’s Republican rival Mitt Romney, calling his criticism of Russia “mistaken” campaign rhetoric and suggesting a Romney presidency would widen the rift over the anti-missile shield the US is deploying in Europe.

Putin was asked whether Moscow should rethink its stance on Syria after vetoing three Western-backed UN Security Council resolutions designed to pressure Assad to end violence that has killed 20,000 people.

“Why should only Russia re-evaluate its position?” he said. “Maybe our partners in the negotiation process should re-evaluate their position.”

Without naming any country, he hinted the US was looking to militants to help topple Assad and would regret it, drawing a parallel with US support for the mujahideen who fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan during the Cold War.

Putin has signed laws in his new term that critics say are part of a campaign to suppress dissent.

“What is ‘tightening the screws’?” he said. “If this means the demand that everyone, including representatives of the opposition, obey the law, then yes, this demand will be consistently implemented.”

Putin declined to comment on the sentences handed down to three women from punk band Pussy Riot jailed for two years for performing a raucous anti-Putin song inside a Moscow cathedral.

“I know what is going on with Pussy Riot, but I am staying out of it completely,” he told the channel.

Putin said abuses committed against the Russian Orthodox Church and other faiths in the Soviet era made the Pussy Riot protest particularly offensive and “the state is obliged to protect the feelings of believers”.

Kremlin opponents and defence lawyers accused Putin of influencing last month’s trial and sentence.

— Reuters