[Mr.
Lukashevich said that Russia was not carrying out any discussions with
the United States about Mr. Assad’s future, shooting down widespread
speculation that Russia could help arrange the president’s safe passage out of
Syria. He said he had restated Russia’s insistence on a negotiated solution
“hundreds of times” in recent months. ]
By Ellen Barry
 |
Assad’s Grip on Power Is Questioned |
“We
have never changed our position and will not change it,” said the Foreign
Ministry spokesman, Aleksandr K. Lukashevich, at a briefing. He rejected a
comment made by a State Department spokesman on Thursday that Moscow had “woken
up” and changed its position as dynamics shifted on the battlefield, saying “we
have never been asleep.”
Mr.
Lukashevich said that Russia was not carrying out any discussions with
the United States about Mr. Assad’s future, shooting down widespread
speculation that Russia could help arrange the president’s safe passage out of
Syria. He said he had restated Russia’s insistence on a negotiated solution
“hundreds of times” in recent months.
“In
the given situation, we are not talking about the fate of leaders, we are
talking about the fate of people,” he said.
Mr.
Lukashevich was seeking to calm speculation prompted on Thursday, when Deputy
Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told the Public Chamber, a Kremlin advisory
group, that it was “impossible to rule out a victory of the Syrian opposition,”
in comments that were immediately made public by
Russian wire services.
The
statement appeared to signal a turn in the nearly two-year-old conflict and was
seen in the West as evidence that Mr. Assad was losing politically as well as
militarily.
An
earlier statement from the Foreign Ministry which was published on its Web site
on Friday, said that Mr. Bogdanov “has not given any announcements or special
interviews to journalists in recent days,” suggesting that his comments were
given informally and not meant for publication.
It
also framed his comments about rebel gains differently, saying he was simply
repeating — and not confirming — the rebels’ claims about military advances.
“In
this context, Mr. Bogdanov once more underlined the principled Russian position
about the necessity of a political solution” to the crisis, the statement said.
It did not deny that Mr. Bogdanov made the extensive comments, which were
disseminated by Russian news agencies that were present at the hearing.
Fyodor
Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs, said that to the best of his
knowledge, the comments represented an “expert assessment” of events on the
ground in Syria, but were not intended for publication.
“The
only conclusion we can make is that the Russian Foreign Ministry is very
realistic about what is happening there,” he said. “There are no illusions
about the trend. But we can understand the Russian position has not changed.”
In
his briefing on Friday, Mr. Lukashevich also said Russia has been working with
Ukraine to ensure the safety of Ankhar Kochneva, a Ukrainian journalist and
translator who was captured two months ago by a Syrian militant group. Her
captors have threatened to kill her unless they receive a ransom of $50
million, according to Ukrainian news sources.
In
a video posted on the Internet last month, Ms. Kochneva was filmed saying she
worked for Russian intelligence services, although it is not clear whether she
spoke voluntarily.
Mr.
Lukashevich noted that Ms. Kochneva’s captors had posted a video on YouTube on
Thursday threatening to attack Russian and Ukrainian diplomatic missions, and
he said Russia would take all necessary measures to protect its diplomats. A spokesman
at the Russian Embassy in Damascus, the Syrian capital, told Interfax on
Thursday that he saw no sharp deterioration in conditions and it is not yet
necessary to evacuate personnel.
Ukraine
has announced it is beefing up security at its facility in Damascus, and a
Foreign Ministry spokesman this week called on the Syrian government to “take
more active and effective measures to secure the release of the kidnapped
Ukrainian woman.”
“We’re
expecting concrete results,” said the spokesman, Oleksandr Dykusarov, according
to the Interfax news service.
@The New York Times
IN KERALA, A DISTINCTLYINDIAN ART FAIR WITH INTERNATIONAL APPEAL
[Mr. Neto, who had labored through the night, had his
installations in place by then. But not every artist had managed that. Instead
of an orderly display of paintings and sculpture, one encountered the chaotic
scramble of industry on Wednesday -- hammering, soldering and whirring sounds
filled the air. India, with its penchant for last-minute event preparation,
seems to have created a new type of art fair, the art-in-progress show. ]
By Minu Ittyipe
KOCHI
-- In a dank, musty loft at Moidu's Heritage, an unused warehouse
in Fort Kochi, Kerala, the Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto stood precariously on
a stool.
He had only a few hours to get his work installed before the
Kochi-Muziris Biennale would kick off, and things were not going well. Clad in
a white dhoti and T-shirt, he stretched the ends of a piece of cotton fabric
and hooked it onto nails on the wooden rafters. His frustration was palpable.
The muggy weather and the lack of electricity in the building were hampering
his progress. "My work is all about tension. It gets incorporated into my
art," he muttered.
The three-month-long biennale, India's first, started this week
with a nod to the mystical: At exactly noon on Dec. 12, 2012, the wrought-iron
gates of Aspinwall House, a sea-facing colonial-era spice house that is one of
the main venues, was thrown open to the public.
Mr. Neto, who had labored through the night, had his
installations in place by then. But not every artist had managed that. Instead
of an orderly display of paintings and sculpture, one encountered the chaotic
scramble of industry on Wednesday -- hammering, soldering and whirring sounds
filled the air. India, with its penchant for last-minute event preparation,
seems to have created a new type of art fair, the art-in-progress show.
Critics and art lovers, far removed from clinical, impersonal
gallery spaces, seemed delighted by this unusual engagement with artists. The
creation of art, they said, is another dimension that needs to be explored.
"One rarely gets to see artists at work at other biennales," said the
Beirut-based critic Kaelen Wilson-Goldie. "It is interesting to see how an
artist tries to solve the problem of a particular environment and create
something."
The Kochi-Muziris Biennale seeks to "invoke the historic
cosmopolitan legacy of Kochi and its predecessor, the ancient port of
Muziris," according to the fair's curators. Muziris is thought to have
been involved in the spice trade as early as the third century B.C., trading
with Romans, Greeks, Chinese, Jews and Arabs. It is said to have been wiped out
in 1341, when the Periyar River flooded, after which the town of Cochin, 20
miles to the south, rose to commercial prominence. (Cochin was renamed Kochi in
1996.)
Eighty-eight artists from 24 countries are showcasing their work
in 10 different venues in Kochi, including the Fort Kochi neighborhood . Some
85 percent of the work is site-specific, created with the surroundings and
history of Kochi in mind. "Some of the rooms had cracked floors and broken
tiles, but it was stunning to see they were able to use that space," said
the Delhi-based curator Ina Puri. "The subjects were global, like
migration and the dispossessed, but the works were conceived to ensure that the
flavors were distinctly Indian."
For more information
on the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, see the fair's Web site.
