Russian President Vladimir Putin has not made an agreement with Saudi Arabia to scale back support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in exchange for economic incentives including an arms deal, the Kremlin said on Friday.
Commenting on a Reuters report that Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar made the proposal to Putin at talks last week in Moscow, Putin's foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said no deal had been discussed in detail.
He also said no specifics about military cooperation had been discussed but did not issue a denial that the broad outlines of a proposal had been presented to Putin.
"Putin did not discuss a deal," Ushakov told reporters. "No specific questions on developing military cooperation were discussed."
Suggesting the meeting had been short on detail, he said: "It was a very rich and interesting meeting that was of a philosophical character."
Prince Bandar and Putin "demonstrated a similar amount of concern" about the conflict in Syria, he said.
Russia has supported Assad with arms and diplomatic cover throughout the war and any change in Moscow's stance would remove a major obstacle to action on Syria by the United Nations Security Council.
Syrian opposition sources close to Saudi Arabia said Prince Bandar offered to buy up to $15 billion of Russian weapons as well as ensuring that Gulf gas would not threaten Russia's position as a main gas supplier to Europe.
In return, Saudi Arabia wanted Moscow to ease its strong support of Assad and agree not to block any future Security Council Resolution on Syria, they said.
A Gulf source familiar with the matter also said that Prince Bandar offered to buy large quantities of arms from Russia, but that no cash amount was specified in the talks.
This comes as Vedomosti newspaper reported that Russia has not
delivered the sophisticated S-300 missile systems ordered by Syria although
several have been built.
According to the Russian arms export agency's contract with
Damascus, a batch of the systems was due to be sent to Syria this spring, but
the systems are now apparently due for delivery in the summer of 2014 although Damascus
has paid a multi-million deposit, Vedomosti said.
This as Russian President Vladimir Putin said in June that
Moscow had not yet delivered the advanced anti-aircraft missile systems to the regime
of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for fear of upsetting the balance of power on
the regional level.
Separately, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has
discussed the escalating humanitarian crisis and increasing sectarian violence
in Syria with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky
said the U.N. chief underscored the need to find a political solution to the 2
1/2-year Syria conflict and to urgently renew momentum for a new Geneva
conference to try to get the government and opposition to agree on a transitional
government.
He said the secretary-general
told Lavrov at a working dinner Thursday that the U.N. would do "its
utmost" to support Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. They also
discussed Lebanon, Afghanistan, the broader Middle East and North Africa, he
said.
The Syrian crisis is also likely
to highlight Lavrov's meeting in Washington Friday with Secretary of State John
Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.
LBCI/AP/REUTERS