MOSCOW (AP)
-- President Vladimir Putin proposed on Monday to send a delegation of
Russian lawmakers to the United States to discuss the situation in Syria
with members of Congress.
Two top Russian
legislators suggested that to Putin, saying polls have shown little
support among Americans for armed intervention in Syria to punish its
regime for an alleged chemical weapons attack.
Russian
television showed Putin meeting on Monday with Valentina Matvienko, the
speaker of the upper house, and Sergei Naryshkin, the lower house
speaker, at his residence outside Moscow.
The
lawmakers said maybe U.S. legislators can be persuaded to take a
"balanced stance" on the issue. Putin supported the initiative, which
would require formal approval by the Foreign Ministry.
Russia
has sent legislators to the U.S. before to try to persuade Congress
about pending legislation. But sending a delegation to Washington to
discuss Syria's civil war could be seen as a publicity stunt, given the
strong positions Moscow already has taken as a key ally of Syrian
President Bashar Assad's regime. The U.S. has accused Russia of
providing military support to Assad that has allowed him to cling to
power during Syria's civil war.
On Monday,
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed evidence of the alleged
chemical weapons use by the Syrian regime as "absolutely unconvincing."
He
said the evidence presented by the U.S. to Moscow showed "there was
nothing specific there, no geographic coordinates, no names, no proof
that the tests were carried out by the professionals." He did not
describe the tests further.
The U.S. said it
has proof that Assad's regime is behind attacks that Washington claims
killed at least 1,429 people, including more than 400 children in a
suburb of the Syrian capital of Damascus on Aug. 21. Syrian officials
have denied the allegations, blaming rebel fighters.
Lavrov
has brushed aside Western assertions of an alleged Syrian regime role.
Russia, along with China and Iran, has staunchly backed Assad throughout
the conflict.
"What our American, British and
French partners showed us in the past and have showed just recently is
absolutely unconvincing," Lavrov said at Russia's top diplomatic school.
"And when you ask for more detailed proof, they say all of this is
classified so we cannot show this to you."
On
Saturday Putin spoke out against the prospect of U.S. military
intervention in Syria, calling such a move "foolish nonsense" that
"defies all logic."
The Russian legislators
plan to head to the U.S. just as President Barack Obama seeks
congressional approval for a military strike on Assad's forces. Putin
said a dialogue between legislators of the two countries was an
essential part of reviving Russian-American relations.
In
July 2012, a delegation of Russian legislators travelled to Washington
in an unsuccessful bid to prevent Congress from passing sanctions
against 18 Russians as part of a law named after Sergei Magnitsky. The
whistleblowing Russian lawyer was arrested in 2008 for tax evasion after
accusing Russian police officials of stealing $230 million in tax
rebates.
That visit by legislators from
Russia's parliament - which often rubber-stamps Putin's edicts - was
later justified as the private initiative of a handful of Russian
legislators, not an official government delegation.
---
AP correspondent Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow contributed.
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