MOSCOW: Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov has said he is ready to step in if necessary and ensure that Syria gets the wheat it needs in what he said was the unlikely event that Russian wheat supplies to the country were disrupted.
Russian and Syrian sources told Reuters on Friday that Russian wheat supplies to Syria had been suspended due to uncertainty about the new government there after two vessels carrying Russian wheat for Syria failed to reach their destinations.
In a message posted on his Telegram channel on Sunday, Kadyrov said that the two rerouted vessels had been carrying “commercial” wheat and that Russian state-backed supplies to Syria had not been affected.
“Even if for some impossible and incredible reasons this does happen, I, as the head of the Chechen Republic, am ready to take responsibility and ensure the necessary amount of wheat for Syria,” Kadyrov wrote.
Russia, the world’s largest wheat exporter, supplies wheat to Syria through complex financial and logistical arrangements, circumventing Western sanctions imposed on both countries. It is not clear what share of wheat is supplied by the state.
Kadyrov did not specify how he would organize and finance wheat supplies to Syria if he had to step in and where the wheat would come from.
But he said he could act, if necessary, via a charitable fund named after his late father which helped to rebuild some mosques and provided humanitarian aid to Syria during ousted President Bashar Assad’s rule.
Russian analysts estimate Russia’s exports to Syria at 300,000 tons so far this season, with the country ranking 24th among buyers of Russian wheat. They estimate Syria’s total wheat imports at about 2 million tons.
Russia is the main supplier of wheat to Syria, and disruption in supplies could cause hunger in the country of over 23 million people. Sources told Reuters the two sides are in contact regarding supplies. (Reporting by Olga Popova and Gleb Bryanski Editing by Andrew Osborn)
Leader of Russia’s Chechnya says he is ready to ensure wheat supplies to Syria if necessary
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Leader of Russia’s Chechnya says he is ready to ensure wheat supplies to Syria if necessary
- Russian wheat supplies to Syria had been suspended due to uncertainty about the new government there after two vessels carrying Russian wheat for Syria failed to reach their destinations
Three brothers arrested over US embassy blast in Oslo
- The brothers, who were Norwegian citizens of Iraqi origin, had been arrested in Oslo and police were investigating the motive
- While none of the brother were previously known to police, Hatlo said investigators were not ruling out links to “criminal networks“
OSLO: Norwegian police said Wednesday three brothers had been arrested on suspicion of a “terrorist bombing” over a weekend explosion at the US embassy in Oslo, which caused minor damage but no injuries.
Police prosecutor Christian Hatlo told a press conference the brothers, who were Norwegian citizens of Iraqi origin, had been arrested in Oslo and that police were investigating the motive.
“We are still working from several hypotheses. One of them is whether this is an order from a government entity,” Hatlo said.
“This is quite natural given the target — the US embassy — and the security situation the world is in today,” he said.
Hatlo said the investigation would seek to clarify exactly what roles the brothers, who were in their 20s, had played.
“We believe that one of them is the person who placed the bomb outside the embassy and that the other two were complicit in the act,” Hatlo told reporters.
Oystein Storrvik, a lawyer for one of the suspects, told broadcaster TV 2 that his client had admitted “to being involved in the case.”
“He admits that he placed the bomb there,” Storrvik told the broadcaster.
Storrvik added that his client had been questioned by police.
“He has explained what happened, and I have no further comments at this time,” he said.
- ‘Proxy actors’ -
While none of the brother were previously known to police, Hatlo said investigators were not ruling out links to “criminal networks.”
In its annual threat assessment, Norwegian security service PST said last month that Iran, which it considers one of the main threats to the country, could rely on “proxy actors,” including “criminal networks,” to commit acts.
On Tuesday, Iran’s ambassador in Oslo denied any involvement by his country in the embassy explosion.
“It is unacceptable that we are being singled out,” Alireza Jahangiri told Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang.
According to police, the perpetrators of the bombing, described as “powerful,” may also have acted out of their own motives.
US embassies have been placed on high alert in the Middle East due to American strikes on Iran. Several have faced attacks as Tehran responds by targeting industrial and diplomatic facilities.
The blast took place at around 1:00 am (0000 GMT) on Sunday at the entrance to the embassy’s consular section.
On Monday, two images were released from surveillance camera footage showing a suspect dressed in dark clothing with a hood over his head and wearing a backpack.
Roughly at the time the incident occurred, a video had been uploaded to the Google Maps page for the US embassy.
The video, which has since been taken down, appeared to show Iran’s late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the US-Israeli strikes in Iran.
According to Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, the person who uploaded the video wrote in Persian: “God is great. We are victorious.”
Police have also opened an investigation into this.
