{"id":10208,"date":"2012-05-29T06:46:12","date_gmt":"2012-05-29T13:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=10208"},"modified":"2012-05-29T06:46:12","modified_gmt":"2012-05-29T13:46:12","slug":"syria-conflict-may-spark-mideast-hostilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=10208","title":{"rendered":"Syria Conflict May Spark Mideast Hostilities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Syria Conflict May Spark Mideast Hostilities<\/strong>
\n29 May, 2012 – Marc Bennetts – RIA Novosti<\/p>\n

MOSCOW – Russia\u2019s top diplomat predicted on Tuesday that the spiraling violence in Syria could ignite tensions across the Middle East.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is vital to look at the situation in Syria, as events taking place there have already had an effect in Lebanon and are likely to have a negative influence on other parts of the region,\u201d Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told journalists.<\/p>\n

At least two people were killed earlier this month in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli during clashes between Sunni Muslims and members of the Alawite minority faith, an offshoot of Shia Islam. Sunni Muslims in the city support the revolt against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is an Alawite.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all need to demonstrate the maximum vigilance and not pour oil on the fire \u2013 we need to try to extinguish it and sit the sides down at the negotiation table,\u201d Lavrov added.<\/p>\n

His comments came a day after Russia called for an investigation into this weekend\u2019s massacre in the western Syrian town of Houla, where over 100 people were killed in what the United Nations says was an \u201coutrageous use of force\u201d by government troops.<\/p>\n

Lavrov said on Monday that there was \u201cno doubt\u201d the Syrian authorities had used tanks and artillery to attack the town, near the former rebel stronghold of Homs, but that the Kremlin did not rule out that rebels were also involved.<\/p>\n

Russian deputy UN ambassador Alexander Pankin told journalists after the massacre that Moscow the killings may have been a \u201cprovocation\u201d carried out by rebel forces ahead of the visit by UN peace envoy Kofi Annan to Syria.<\/p>\n

And on Tuesday, Lavrov said that \u201ccertain countries\u201d were attempting to use the deaths in Houla as a \u201cpretext\u201d for the start of a military operation against Assad\u2019s forces, which have been armed in part by Russia. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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Syria Conflict May Spark Mideast Hostilities 29 May, 2012 – Marc Bennetts – RIA Novosti MOSCOW – Russia\u2019s top diplomat predicted on Tuesday that the spiraling violence in Syria could ignite tensions across the Middle East. \u201cIt is vital to look at the situation in Syria, as events taking place there have already had an more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[3095],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10208"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10208"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10210,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10208\/revisions\/10210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}