SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) — on 14 June 2012 Victoria Nuland Spokesperson for US State Department said on daily press briefing , that Bahrain remains the strong and long standing ally to US and she refused the Russian Foreign Minister Lavorv remarks on arms supply to Bahraini tyrant Regime AL-khalifa , where the regime use them in crushing peaceful demonstrations calling for self-determination and human rights .
RT : Lavorv Statement:
"We don't supply Syria or anyone else with things that are used to fight against peaceful demonstrators, unlike the United States, which regularly supplies that region with such special equipment,” he said.
Lavrov then referred to one such US shipment that “went to one of the Gulf countries recently,” something that the“Americans consider…to be acceptable," he said.
Meanwhile, Konstantin Makiyenko, deputy director of the Center for Strategies and Technologies Analysis, said The US "sells huge amounts of weapons to the repressive Saudi regime, which took part in the tough suppression of peaceful Shiite protests against the despotic regime in Bahrain," Makiyanko said. "Systematic suppression of the opposition takes place in Saudi Arabia. The US has no moral right to lecture Russia on who should get weapons and who should not."
US State Department reply :
QUESTION: Thank you. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov was responding to Secretary Clinton’s remarks, pointed out that the U.S. recently shipped arms to Bahrain and accused the U.S. of hypocrisy in that regard. Does he have a point?
MS. NULAND: Josh, I spoke to this extensively. I don’t remember if it was yesterday or the day before yesterday. There – you cannot equate these situations. I’ll just briefly summarize, but refer you back.
In the Bahrain context, in the first instance, we are not talking about a regime that is using helicopters against its own people, number one. Second, when we had concerns about how a new set of weapons might be used, we put a pause on our relationship with Bahrain to ensure that the commitments that we have, particularly through our end-user certificates which dictate how weapons sales are to be used, are being complied with, and that – and to encourage Bahrain to complete the work to implement the BICI Commission’s recommendations. And the only thing we’ve gone forward with are things that are clearly usable for external defense, including the fleet, et cetera. So the situations are not comparable at all.
Source: US State Department , RT
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