RUSSIA today acknowledged for the first time a cargo ship forced to turn back from British waters was carrying attack helicopters bound for Syria that it had repaired for Bashar al Assad's regime.
Foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said the ship, which headed back to Russia after its British insurer withdrew cover, would return to the port of Murmansk on June 23 to sail under the Russian flag rather than that of the Caribbean island of Curacao.
"The ship Alaed sailed on June 11 with a cargo including Mi-25 helicopters which are the property of the Syrian side," he told reporters.
The ship's cargo troubled Assad's Western and Arab foes, who have repeatedly called on Moscow to halt all military cooperation with Syria due to the government's crackdown on the opposition.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also confirmed the nature of the cargo, saying the ship had carried "three helicopters that had been repaired" by Russia for Syria under an agreement dating back to 2008.
"The repairs were quite serious and thorough," Lavrov told the Echo Moscow radio, adding that the helicopters were being transported in dismantled form.
Lavrov blamed the fact the ship had to turn back on the "unreliability" of the British insurance system. "Contracts and agreements must be fulfilled. That is an irrefutable truth," he added.
He said in the interview the Alaed, owned by Russian cargo shipping line Femco, had also been carrying air defense equipment but gave no further details.
Vladimir Kudelev, an Arab world expert at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told the Interfax news agency it was possible the ship was carrying Buk-M2e air defence missile systems.
British media had reported the ship had picked up the helicopters from the Russian port of Kaliningrad, where they had been sent for the repairs.
Lukashevich confirmed the vessel was now on its way to Russia's Arctic Circle port of Murmansk to be transferred to the Russian flag and avoid the security inspections that vessels flagged under third countries must undergo.
The British insurer, Standard Club, this week confirmed that it had cancelled insurance for the ship and for all others in the Femco fleet after learning of allegations about the nature of its cargo.
Lukashevich said that Russia would maintain its cooperation with Syria but would refrain from delivering arms that could be used against peaceful demonstrators.
Earlier today, the Arab League's deputy secretary-general Ahmed Bin Hilli said in an interview with Interfax, "Any assistance to violence must be ceased because when you supply military equipment, you help kill people. This must stop."
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