Putin ‘not preoccupied’ with Assad’s fate

— Russian President Vladimir Putin distanced himself further than ever from Syria’s embattled leader Thursday, suggesting that Bashar Assad’s regime is growing weaker while warning that his decline could exacerbate the country’s crisis.

Putin insisted, however, that Russia’s position on the conflict has not changed and that only a negotiated agreement could “prevent a breakup of the country and an endless civil war.”

Other Russian officials have made similar statements recently, although Putin’s carry much more weight, suggesting that resignation to the idea that Assad could fall extends to the Kremlin’s top reaches.

Russia has stood staunchly by Assad throughout the 21-month conflict, providing his forces with weapons and, along with China, protecting his government from censure by the U.N. Security Council for its violent crackdown on the opposition.

His latest comments, however, suggested that Russia realizes Assad’s days could be numbered.

“We are not preoccupied that much with the fate of the Assad regime,” Putin told reporters during his annual, hours-long news conference in Moscow. “We realize what’s going on there and that the family has been in power for 40 years. Undoubtedly, there is a call for changes.”

But Putin said the erosionof Assad’s regime might extend the war, not end it.

“We are worried about another thing: What happens next,” he said. “We don’t want to see the opposition come to power and start fighting the government ... so that it goes on forever.”

He said Russia does not seek “to keep Assad and his regime in power at any cost,” but to foster an agreement among Syrians that “will ensure their safety and their participation in governing the country.”

World powers have tried numerous times to push for a political solution in Syria, butneither side has showed any interest in negotiations, both thinking they can win militarily.

The Russian’s comments came as rebels seeking to drive Assad from power are making gains throughout the country, storming military bases in the north and expanding their control in a string of towns near the capital Damascus, Assad’s seat of power.

While few expect the conflict to end soon, analysts say the balance appears to be tipping in favor of the rebels, however slowly.

On Thursday, U.S. officials said forces loyal to Assad have resumed firing Scud ballistic missiles against rebel positions in recent days.

“We’ve been clear that we have seen the regime in Syria use Scud missiles against its own people, and that continues,” a senior State Department official said.

U.S. officials said there was no indication that the missiles were armed with chemical weapons. They had no information on possible casualties.

Contacts inside Syria said one Scud attack took place Thursday near Maara, a town in a rebel-held area north of Aleppo near the Turkish border. The missile appeared to have missed its target, and the initial accounts were that nobody was hurt. U.S. officials, who have been monitoring Assad’s military actions via aerial surveillance and other methods, did not corroborate those details but disclosed that the Scud firings, which they first reported last week, had resumed.

“We know they’ve been firing Scuds and continue to fire them,” said a Defense Department official.

U.S. officials said Dec. 12 that the Syrian military had fired six Scud missiles at the Sheikh Suleiman base north of Aleppo, which rebel forces had occupied. It is unclear whether the Scuds, which are Soviet-era designed missiles not known for their precision, hit the intended target.

The Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, later issued a statement denying that Syria had used Scuds. It called the reports “untrue rumors.”

Also Thursday, days of intense clashes in a Palestinian refugee community in south Damascus subsided and hundreds residents who had fled returned to their homes after Palestinian leaders negotiatedthe rebels’ exit from the neighborhood.

About one third of Syria’s half-million Palestinians live in the Yarmouk district, and more than 100,000 of them fled the area as rebel forces pushed in and clashed with government troops, activists and U.N. officials said.

Syria’s uprising has posed a dilemma for Syria’s Palestinian refugees. Assad has long portrayed himself as a champion of their cause and granted them more rights than Palestinians in other Arab countries enjoy.

But as the country descended into civil war, some took up arms with the rebels while others fought for the regime. Last week’s clashes began when Syrian rebels enter Yarmouk to back up anti-regime Palestinians fighting pro-regime factions.

A new U.N. human rights report said the civil war is increasingly a sectarian conflict between rebels from the country’s Sunni Muslim majority and government forces largely supported by the country’s religious and ethnic minorities.

The report was released by an independent U.N. commission charged with investigating abuses during the war.

Information for this article was contributed by Ben Hubbard, Vladimir Isachenkov, Mansur Mirovalev, Albert Aji and Slobodan Lekic of The Associated Press; and by Michael R. Gordon and Eric Schmitt of The New York Times.

Front Section, Pages 8 on 12/21/2012

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