By Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Amena Bakr
AMMAN/DOHA
(Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has offered Russia
economic incentives including a major arms deal and a pledge not to
challenge Russian gas sales if Moscow scales back support for Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad, Middle East sources and Western diplomats
said on Wednesday.
The proposed deal between two
of the leading power brokers in Syria's devastating civil war was set
out by Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan at a meeting
with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow last week, they said.
Russia
has supported Assad with arms and diplomatic cover throughout the war
and any change in Moscow's stance would remove a major obstacle to
action on Syria by the
United Nations Security Council.
Syrian opposition sources close to Saudi Arabia
said Prince Bandar offered to buy up to $15 billion of Russian weapons
as well as ensuring that Gulf gas would not threaten Russia's position
as a main gas supplier to Europe.
In return,
Saudi Arabia wanted Moscow to ease its strong support of Assad and agree not to block any future Security Council Resolution on
Syria, they said.
A Gulf source familiar with the matter confirmed that Prince Bandar offered to buy large quantities of arms from
Russia, but that no cash amount was specified in the talks.
One
Lebanese politician close to Saudi Arabia said the meeting between
Bandar and Putin lasted four hours. "The Saudis were elated about the
outcome of the meeting," said the source, without elaborating.
Putin's
spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, could not immediately be reached on Wednesday
for comment about the meeting. A Saudi Foreign Ministry official was
also not immediately available to respond.
Putin's
initial response to Bandar's offer was inconclusive, diplomats say. One
Western diplomat in the Middle East said the Russian leader was
unlikely to trade Moscow's recent high profile in the region for an arms
deal, however substantial.
He said Russian officials also appeared skeptical that Saudi Arabia had a clear plan for stability in
Syria if Assad fell.
CHEMICAL WEAPONS
However,
in a possible sign of greater flexibility by Moscow, other diplomats
said that in the run-up to the meeting Russia put pressure on Assad to
allow in a U.N. mission to investigate the suspected use of chemical
weapons.
The U.N. team is expected to visit Syria next week.
"This
was one of those unannounced meetings that could prove much more
important than the public diplomatic efforts being made on Syria," one
diplomat said.
A senior Syrian opposition figure said there had been a "build-up of Russian-Saudi contacts prior to the meeting".
"Bandar
sought to allay two main Russian fears: that Islamist extremists will
replace Assad, and that Syria would become a conduit for Gulf, mainly
Qatari, gas at the expense of Russia," he said. "Bandar offered to
intensify energy, military and economic cooperation with Moscow."
Saudi
Arabia and other Sunni Muslim powers have been strong supporters of the
mainly Sunni rebels battling Assad, from Syria's minority Alawite sect,
an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam. The rebels have been joined by foreign
Sunni jihadis.
Assad has enjoyed military support from
Iran and fighters from Hezbollah and Iraqi Shi'ites.
Russia
has maintained military sales to Syria throughout the two year conflict
in which 100,000 people have been killed, and helped block three U.N.
draft resolutions criticizing Assad's crackdown on the mainly peaceful
protests against him in 2011.
The
Security Council has been considering a possible resolution on aid for
Syria for several months and a shift in position by Moscow could
alleviate this.
Ruslan Pukhov,
director of the Moscow-based defense think tank CAST, said he had no
direct knowledge of the offer, but he would not be surprised if a
contract to supply Saudi Arabia with 150 Russian T-90 tanks were
revived.
"There was an order of
T-90s that was stopped for mysterious reasons, and if this is a
resurrection of that order then we could suspect that the Saudis want
something in return and that something could be linked to Syria," said
Pukhov, who is close to Russia's Defense Ministry.
"If
the Saudis want Moscow to outright drop Assad, they will refuse the
deal, but they may have a more nuanced position, which they could
possibly agree to."
Russia and
Saudi Arabia penned an arms contract in 2008 for 150 T-90s as well as
more than 100 Mi-17 and Mi-35 attack helicopters as well as BMP-3
infantry fighting vehicles, but the contract has stalled for years.
Russian
newspaper Kommersant reported at the time that the contract was
concluded to persuade Moscow to curtail its ties with Iran, though the
Kremlin denied that report.
(Additional reporting by Thomas Grove in Moscow; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Giles Elgood)
