Last update - 00:00 02/03/2007
Peres calls for pushing Moscow to stop supplying arms to Syria
By Haaretz Service
Israel should pressure Moscow to stop supplying weapons to Syria, Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres (Kadima) said Friday.
Supplying weapons to Syria encourages it to go to war, Israel Radio quoted Peres as saying.
"The United Nations is aware that weapons-smuggling from Syria to Hezbollah is continuing," Peres was quoted as saying. "Israel must exert pressure on Moscow so it stops supplying the Syrians with weapons."
Former foreign minister Silvan Shalom (Likud) said Russian President Vladimir Putin was apparently bringing Russia back into the Soviet era and "playing with fire," Israel Radio reported.
Israeli officials have recently learned that Damascus is close to concluding a large deal with Russia to procure thousands of advanced anti-tank missiles for the Syrian army. Such a development suggests that Israel's diplomatic efforts to block the sale have failed.
According to various estimates, the deal is worth several hundred million dollars and involves several thousand advanced anti-tank missiles.
Syria secured anti-tank missiles from the Soviet Union for years, and later, from Russia. During the war in Lebanon last summer, Israel said it found proof that Syria had transferred to Hezbollah advanced Russian-made anti-tank missiles from its arsenal.
Evidence of the existence of these advanced missiles, the Kornet AT-14 and Metis AT-13, came in the form of crates discovered in the villages of Ghandurya and Farun, close to the Saluki River. The shipment documents showed that they had been procured by the Syrian army and transferred to Hezbollah.
Until Israel was able to produce such evidence, the authorities in Moscow refused to acknowledge that advanced Russian-made weapons were being transferred to Hezbollah.
But after the war, an Israeli delegation that included members of the National Security Council and the Foreign Ministry presented the evidence to senior Russian officials.
The Russians promised to reevaluate some of the planned arms deals with Syria to ensure that advanced weaponry would not make its way to terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah.
However, there are now concerns in Israel that Russia will not keep its promise and that the deal with Damascus for the anti-tank missiles is near being finalized.
Syria stepped up its efforts to convince Russia to make the sale following the lessons it reached from the war in Lebanon. The fact that Hezbollah succeeded in delaying an Israeli armored column at the battle near the Saluki River with accurate fire from anti-tank missiles was noted favorably in Arab armies.
In retrospect, and following an IDF study, the number of tanks that were actually damaged during fighting in the war did not exceed several dozen, and in some of them the damage suffered was very minimal. But missile types like the Kornet and the Metis proved their destructive abilities and in some cases even penetrated the armor of the Merkava Mark IV, which is considered to be the best protected tank in the world.
The IDF found it difficult to counter this threat, particularly since the weapons could be fired accurately from distances of five kilometers.