Financial Times learned about Putin’s Assad to step down – RBC

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin (left to right) during a meeting in the Kremlin, October 21, 2015

Photo Alexei Druzhinin / press-service of the Russian president / TASS

Sources in western intelligence FT said that Putin’s request to transfer the resignation of Damascus I traveled Chief Intelligence Directorate Igor Sergun. Assad, according to the publication, c anger refused to leave his post.

The publication said that the head of the GRU traveled to Damascus a few weeks before his death. On the death of the chief of the GRU Kremlin announced on January 4.

The Defense Ministry were not able to promptly respond to the request RBC to comment on this information. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied reports that Putin has offered Assad to resign.

On the death Sergunov 59-year life became known January 4 – a telegram of condolence was published on the website of the President of Russia. According to the official version, Sergun died January 3.

A few days later the American intelligence and analytical company Stratfor reported that Sergun died January 1 Lebanon. Stratfor is not called the source from which information was received, and indicates that his data raise a number of questions. Commenting on the January 8 information that Sergun died in Lebanon, the president’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, said it was “absolutely not.” For information about the death Sergunov in Lebanon also denied the newspaper “Kommersant” a high-ranking source in the Russian General Staff. The source said, the Sergun died of heart failure during the Christmas holidays, which General held in Moscow.

At the end of October 2015, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the Syrian people, “it is necessary to prepare for the elections, and the parliamentary and presidential. ” At the same time representatives of the administration of Assad stated that the elections are possible only after “the eradication of terrorism, restore security and stability throughout the country».

According to the agency Bloomberg referring to informed sources, in late December in the negotiations Putin US Secretary of State John Kerry, the Russian leader said that Assad should get the right to participate in presidential elections in Syria in 2017. Putin reportedly stressed that Assad will win the elections in the event that will be able to participate in them. Then in December, the sources of Reuters in diplomatic circles told that representatives of the Russian side agreed to care Assad at the end of the transitional period, however, “are not ready to announce it publicly».

At the end of September, Kerry said, Washington changed its position on the resignation of Assad – if earlier the US government demanded the immediate withdrawal of Syrian President from his post, now agree to it gradually managed care.

Russia since late September fighting in Syria at the request of Assad. It Assad has repeatedly stated the Russian Foreign Ministry, is the only legitimate authority in Syria.

In early January, Putin said in an interview with Bild to the question of whether Russia is ready to provide, if necessary, refuge Assad said, that “talk is premature,” and noted that if the elections in Syria will be “democratic way”, that “can be, and need not be Assad to go anywhere».