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Lawmaker: US harboring of Plan B for Syria mirrors political games in Washington

The senior Russian lawmaker Konstantin Kosachev made this comment in the wake of an article in WSJ regarding the US plans to supply high-power weapons to the so-called moderate Syrian opposition

MOSCOW, April 13. /TASS/. Harboring of Plan B for Syria by the US in case the peace settlement process there goes bust mirrors the internal political games in the US, believes Konstantin Kosachev, the chief of foreign policy committee in the upper house of Russian parliament.

He wrote this in a comment on Facebook on Wednesday in the wake of an article in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) regarding the Obama Administration's plans to supply high-power weapons to the so-called moderate Syrian opposition.

As for Plan B as such, "strictly speaking, it's the very same Plan A that embodies the initial strategy of the US in Syria, which consisted from the very start in knocking up and arming a 'moderate opposition' to Bashar al-Assad's regime so that there was someone to vest power in after Assad's dislodging, since the latter was initially the ultimate goal," Kosachov wrote.

"Still the circumstances changed, in a big measure thanks to the efficacious actions by the Russian Aerospace Forces and Moscow's active diplomatic efforts, and hence Geneva turned into Plan A," he said adding that officials in Washington mentioned a 'reserve option for Syria' back in February.

"The case in hand does not imply a possible disruption by Russia but aims to bring out the ways of grabbing the initiative back and reverting to original objectives along with apportioning blame for frustration of the talk to Moscow," Kosachov said.

"I think the root-cause of the situation is to be found in the trivial internal political games in Washington where powerful forces are quite discontent with the course the Syrian process had taken," Kosachov wrote.

"The situation used to be the same around the Syrian chemical weapons, the Iranian nuclear programme, and around Cuba prior to the current rapprochement between Washington and Havana," he indicated. "But the hawks retreated eventually every time."

"This does not mean of course that they revised their positions and that's why we have to watch certain people's 'skillful hands' closely," he said.

The WSJ said on Tuesday the CIA and secret services of the countries making up an alliance with Washington in the Middle East had agreed to furnish the so-called moderate opposition with top-notch weaponry including the air defense systems if ceasefire in Syria broke down.

The article said Administration officials referred to a possible consigning of weapons to Syria as Plan B.