– Russia not to end military presence in Syria: army chief (PressTV, Aug 28, 2012):
Russia has no intention to end its military presence in Syria despite the ongoing violence in the Arab nation, the Head of Russian army says.Chief of Staff General Nikolai Makarov on Tuesday rejected the reports that Moscow was in the process of evacuating its naval base in Syria and pulling out its high ranking military personnel.
“Why are you so worried about Syria?” Makarov said. “All the plans that we have in place are working and no one is running away from there.”
“I would think it is premature to start making any conclusions and saying that we ran away,” Makarov added.
His remarks came after some unconfirmed report began circulating in Russian media claiming that Moscow has decided to reduce the number of its military personnel in a naval center in the Syrian city of Tartus.
Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011.
The Syrian government says the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of the armed insurgents are foreign nationals.