West Backed Arab Spring for Corporate Gain: Putin

Warns against attacking Iran, intervening in Syria
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 27, 2012 2:58 AM CST
Putin Warns West Over Iran, Syria
Russian police officers block the central square next to the Kremlin during an opposition protest in Moscow yesterday.   (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr.)

Vladimir Putin is talking tough on foreign policy ahead of next Sunday's election. The Russian president has warned Western nations against attacking Iran or intervening militarily in Syria, the AP reports. The growing threat of an attack on Iran over its nuclear program "alarms Russia," Putin writes in a Moscow News article, warning that the consequences of such an attack would be "truly catastrophic."

In the article, Putin defends Russia's veto of a UN resolution condemning Syria's crackdown, saying Moscow will not accept Libya-style Western "interference" to force President Bashar al-Assad from power. He accuses the West of advancing its own agenda "under cover of humanitarian slogans," noting that Russian companies have lost business in countries where the Arab Spring has changed regimes. "That raises a thought that the tragic events to some extent had been driven not by concern about human rights, but a desire by some to redistribute markets," he writes. (More Vladimir Putin stories.)

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