Russia has backed the Syrian government's stand on massacre in the region of Houla saying the bloodshed was the result of foreign assistance to rebels.
“The tragedy in Houla showed what can be the consequence of financial aid and smuggling of modern weapons to rebels, the recruitment of foreign mercenaries and flirting with various extremists,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Referring to a probe conducted by Syrian authorities in the killing of more than 100 people in Houla the Russian statement said it showed that “the crime was an act well planned by the rebels in order to undermine political solution to the Syrian crisis.”
Moscow denounced “attempts to use the deaths of children and innocent people for political ends to return to the vicious algorithm of a ‘Libya scenario'.” Russia together with China and Cuba voted against a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution calling for an independent probe into the Houla deaths.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin has firmly rejected foreign military intervention in Syria and urged the West instead to support the peace mission of the U.N.-Arab envoy Kofi Annan. “What is happening in Libya? What is happening in Iraq? Has it become safer there? We propose to act in an accurate, balanced manner at least in Syria,” Mr. Putin said during a visit to France on Friday.
