Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Friday that Syria could be on the brink of a civil war but underlined his opposition to military intervention to stop the bloodshed.
“You cannot do anything by force,” he told reporters in Berlin, after he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed after talks that they sought a “political solution” to the crisis.
As pressure on Moscow mounted to drop its resistance to tougher UN action on Syria, Putin said the deadly strife risked tearing the country in two.
“Today we are seeing emerging elements of civil war,” he told reporters. “It is extremely dangerous.”But he hit back at suggestions Moscow was supplying arms for use in Syria, saying his country did not deliver weapons to be deployed in civil conflicts.
“As far as arms supplies are concerned, Russia does not supply the weapons that could be used in a civil conflict,” he said.
The president, on his first trip to the West since returning to the Kremlin for a third term, insisted his country was not siding with President Bashar al-Assad’s regime against the opposition. “We are supporting neither side from which the danger of civil war is coming,” he said. And he stressed that a negotiated solution was the only answer to the crisis.
“This is what we talked about with the German chancellor — to find a political solution to these problems. Can it be done or not? On the whole, I believe it is possible,” he said.
“It requires certain professionalism and patience. You cannot do anything by force and expect an immediate effect. A lot of people are involved in the conflict with various interests.
“There is a need to find a convergence of these interests and have them sit down at a negotiating table. That’s the direction we are going to work in.”
Merkel agreed that political talks were the only way out of the turmoil.
“We both made clear that we are pushing for a political solution, that the Annan plan can be a starting point but that everything must be done in the United Nations Security Council to implement this plan,” Merkel said, referring to the peace plan put forward by UN special envoy Kofi Annan.
“We were agreed that every country — I said this for Germany — must do everything to prevent a civil war and prevent more people suffering,” the chancellor added. Putin said Moscow was interested in keeping open the lines of communication to Damascus, regional players and the UN Security Council.
“It goes without saying that we will be in touch with President Assad and the Syrian leadership,” he said.
“We will of course hold dialogue with our partners, first and foremost at the UN Security Council, with Germany, other countries interested in settling the conflict. “We will be in touch with regional powerhouses, with Arab states which are getting involved in the conflict one way or another,” he said.
Putin was to meet new French President Francois Hollande in Paris later Friday. Hollande has evoked the possibility of military intervention in Syria if given a UN Security Council mandate.
