Syria denies war games with Russia, China, Iran

20 June 2012, 09:53 (GMT+05:00)

See Also:

Russia and Syria on Tuesday denied an Iranian media report that Syria would host Russian, Chinese and Iranian military forces for joint exercises, Reuters reported.

Iranian news agency Fars said 90,000 troops and hundreds of ships, tanks and warplanes from the four countries would take part in the war games on land and sea in Syria soon.

The Russian Defense Ministry called such reports "disinformation" and the Russian news agency Interfax quoted an adviser to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as saying it was not true.

"There will be nothing like that. This is one of those (pieces of) false information that are distributed about (Syria)," Interfax quoted Bouthaina Shabaan, the adviser who was in Moscow on Tuesday, as saying.

Interfax said Shabaan was referring to a report on al-Arabiya television that was similar to the Fars article.

Edited by: S. Isayev