Russia denied, through the voice of presidential counsel Yuri Ushakov, the Syrian’s opposition’s claim that she had supposedly accepted to drop Bashar al-Assad’s government, in exchange for a Saudi order of 15 billion dollars worth of weaponry and the guarantee of Russian gas supply to Europe.

The controversy had swelled after the publication of a chronicle by Thierry Meyssan, giving a much different outlook on the meeting between Vladimir Poutine and prince Bandar Bin Sultan. [1].

According to M. Ushakov, the conversations were never about a Russian-Saudi arrangement, but about the different philosophical approaches of both countries to the Syrian conflict and to it’s regional repercussions.

For Thierry Meyssan, the Saudi prince had underscored the necessity for his country to walk out with dignity of the Syrian crisis and had therefore considered the return of Saad Hariri in Lebanon.

Translation
Alizée Ville

[1] « Saudi Arabia ready to negotiate », by Thierry Meyssan, Al-Watan/Voltaire Network, August 5th 2013.